


I'm Not Very Special (said the girl who can time travel)

by 2broke2simp



Category: Hololive, Virtual Streamer Animated Characters
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:15:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 33,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29226846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2broke2simp/pseuds/2broke2simp
Summary: Amelia's future wasn't a pretty thing. Time travel made it bearable, but there was only so long she could bear it before she decided to do something about it. One little thing to change the future, right?But the Phoenix was charismatic, the Shark was cute, and the Reaper... well, the Reaper didn't play much part in it, though Amelia was glad she was around. And one little thing, it very quickly became years of journeying and fighting, of companionship and blood. And, eventually, became a quest, to save an eldritch priestess from an observatory high on a mountain.And from there, the real story began
Relationships: Gawr Gura/Watson Amelia (hololive), Mori Calliope/Takanashi Kiara
Comments: 75
Kudos: 311





	1. Three-Step Peak

Watching a scythe come down on your neck could do funny things to a person. Amelia had never- well, she’d never really seen an end. She always figured she’d just- be around. Living through time. And as that cruel edge closed in, she felt herself fall backwards- not in time, no, she didn’t have the half a moment to flick the gold watch to life. No, instead, she found herself remembering... all of it. From the very start, to the very end.

Time had been on her side for years upon years. That was the idea of a time traveler. No matter how many times she messed up, no matter how many times she lost the great game, she could always go back, could always fix the mistakes she had made.

She’d been frivolous at first. She went back in time to win a game of chess, she jumped ahead because she couldn’t stand waiting for someone to show up. It was easy, a simple life of having fun, with no consequences. She wanted to take something? It was hers. She wanted to call someone a half-brained excuse for a human? She could. 

And then…. Then she got bored. There was only so long she could spend drifting through time. There wasn’t anything for her to do, and the further she went forwards, the darker and darker the timeline became. And maybe, she was starting to think, I’m supposed to be doing something about it.

She was, of course. Not everyone stumbled upon the gold watch, and the few that did, well, time travel had many, many side effects. For some, like Amelia, it was agelessness. For others, it was quite the opposite. She didn’t know that, of course, there wasn’t anyone to tell her, so she remained blissfully unaware of the fact that she had been chosen.  


But she had been, and when Amelia began to seek out more, when she went looking for something to fix, she found it. The first event, as she had begun to title them in her journals, had been the life and times of one Takanashi Kiara. 

In the stories she’d read, the woman was a human, a leader who had dreamed of a great republic in the lowlands she had been born into. Her early death had signaled a spiraling descent of the Serene Republic into a monarchy, and the end of her dream.

Kiara… She wasn’t like the stories. She was fire given life, a broiling, burning spirit hell bent on fixing what she thought was broken. And the five years they had spent together- goddamn had it been a ride.  


In another time, Kiara might have been something else. A musician, maybe, or an artist. Someone who created with their hands, and minds. In that moment, however, she was the rising phoenix, a warrior, a commander, one who reshaped the continent in her image.

And someone who had a habit of collecting people. Not just regular folk, though she did have a penchant for that, but also people of the more interesting variety. Say a Reaper, sent to take the soul of a being that had mastered the art of being reborn. Now- well, she still said she was just there to do a job, but no one really believed her. Calliope was the name she gave, though no one knew if it was her true one, and Kiara was wont to call her things like ‘wife’ and ‘sweetie.’ Teasingly, of course, and usually after a few too many drinks.

Kiara’s second strange companion, besides Amelia herself that is, was almost as rare as the reaper. One of the seafolk, a people even Amelia, with all her time in the world, had only met twice. She was a warrior of a sort, but she preferred the sail to the spear, and much preferred to sit around a fire and eat and drink than fight. Gura, a strange soul, not an outcast, not an exile, just a rare wanderer of a people that had long ago retreated into the ocean. She often attracted the most attention of all of them, her great shark's tail and pointed teeth much more noticeable than, say, the coldness of Calli or the two great feathers at Kiara's ears, ones more often mistook for earrings or some other sort of jewelry.

The four of them- they were a special kind of stupid. Most folk would have quit after the republic was settled, would have gone on their way, happy to have done what they intended. Kiara could have been the first minister of her nation, Gura could have continued in her travels, Calli could go back to whatever it was reapers did while they waited for their mark to die. And Amelia, she could have gone back on the drift. Falling through time, maybe trying to fix more, find more. But Amelia had all the time in the world for that, and if Kiara had anything, it was charisma.

“You know,” Amelia liked to remind Kiara that they could be doing anything else, even if none of them had any intention to do so, “we could all be fat and happy, instead of- what the hell are we even doing?”

That was a good question. They’d been on the road for nearly two weeks by that point, and now they found themselves in the back of a wagon, huddling under cloaks as great gusts of wind blew down from the mountains ahead. They were used to that sort of thing. Kiara was notoriously bad at explaining her plans, and often times all the three would get was a 'follow me,' and they would be off on their next grand journey.

The wagon was- it was just someone’s. One of Kiara’s ‘friends,’ as she called them. Some farmer who remembered her grand campaign, maybe even fought in it. It’s back wasn’t even covered, and the winds- they were sharp, and cold, and even with Gura leaning up against her, it seemed to cut through Amelia's skin and chill her bones. 

“I got a message- someone up the Three-Step Peak needs a hand with… something.” Kiara said. Which was the most she’d told them about what the hell they were doing. 

“You don’t even know-” Amelia started to say, but Calli cut her off.

“It wasn’t the kind of message you ignore.” She had been staring straight ahead, apparently unbothered by the cold or the wind. “Nor one that’s easily understandable.”

“You told Calli and not us?” Gura almost sounded offended for a moment, “what, are we chopped shark?” She nudged Amelia as she said it, hopping for at least a chuckle (which she did not deserve) and Amelia obliged her.

“It- it was a dream message. And Calli-” Kiara said, clearly trying to choose her words carefully. “She was- er-”

“I was in the area.” Calli said, and Amelia could swear she saw the faintest of flushes on the undead paragon.

Gura snorted at that, and before Amelia could ask the sort of question that would end with a scythe and a very angry reaper, Kiara cut in. “We have a job to do here,” she said, “I don't quite know who called, or why, but we're going."

The wagon had begun to slow as they came to the beginning of a low ridge. “This is- ah, as far as I can take you.” The farmer told them, “Can’t get these old wheels up there.”

“Thank you, friend,” Kiara told them, giving the farmer a handful of crowns for his trouble, “good harvests.”

“And the same to you, ma’am.”

The walk up to the crest of the ridge wasn’t difficult, but it was the first in a long line of hills and cliff sides they would have to traverse. At it’s crest, Kiara stopped them, pointing to the icy peak of the mountain just ahead. It was an outlier, some said cast out from it’s brothers in the days of yore. Just below it’s peak sat a squat little tower, made of ugly stone and dull wood.

“That’s our mark,” Kiara said, “The observatory on Three-Step. Hope we’re ready for a hike.”


	2. The Fog

They were not, in fact, ready for a hike. The roots of the Three-Step Peak were jagged and steep, so either the four were pulling themselves up and over dangerous edges, or trying to control their descent down the dips between hills and ridges. 

Their only saving grace was the fact that the Three-Step wasn’t terribly high, and that there was a path of sorts up to the observatory. But the path was rough, and in places devolved into little more than unsteady rocks and hidden drops, waiting for their first victims in many years.

Even if the terrain hadn’t been difficult, even if there had been a path paved in gold and steel, the four of them weren’t exactly made for hiking up mountains. Or rather, two of them weren't. The reaper and the phoenix were the best off of them. Calli’s undead constitution, or lack thereof, had her forging ahead, untiring and unaffected by the cold rock around them. And Kiara, a veteran campaigner, had spent many years on the road and in the cold. This was just another hill to climb for her.

The other two, however, had a significantly harder time of it. Gura was the worst off. While the cold didn’t bother her- it more reminded her of her home in the deeps than anything else- she had never quite done something such as hike. Living underwater meant that there wasn’t really an up or downhill, especially to those whose bodies had spent hundreds upon hundreds of years adapting to the water. And beyond that, she was built to withstand crushing pressures, and even after adapting to the much gentler touch of the surface, her body was still dense, and as much as she hated it when Amelia pointed it out, she was short. Not so much for an Atlantean, but compared to her companions, she was miniscule. Scrabbling up the mountain was far harder when she had to take twice the steps of her companions, and carried just about the same weight up.

For Amelia, it was the cold. And the time. And the fact that she couldn’t just skip ahead to when they were done. She’d never had that much patience, and the gold watch had only exacerbated that. Having to actually live through something as tedious as hiking was infuriating. 

“How-” Gura was heaving as they paused for a moment, her tail all but dragging along the stone beneath them, “how much further? I don’t think I can keep up with you for- for much longer.”

“We’re…” Kiara trailed off, glancing between Calli, who was staring ahead, to the next hill to climb, and back to Gura and Amelia, both of whom were panting and, in Amelia’s case, cursing. “We might need a day. The usual idea is to start at dawn and get to the top before sunset. It get's cold up here. If night comes, we'll have to find a place to rest.”

“Colder?” Amelia asked, as Gura groaned at her side, “are- isn’t there a shortcut? Or another path? Or- like- an observatory that isn’t up a mountain?”

"We'll- we'll be fine." Kiara said, "I can heat all of us if we get in a pinch." Neither Gura nor Amelia were particularly thrilled at that idea. They'd sort of done it before. There had been a string of days where snow and ice had forced them into a cave, and only Kiara's heat had kept them from freezing. It had been an awful time, between having to huddle together for hours and hours on end, to their fingers and toes never seeming to get warm enough

Their enthusiasm for the idea must have shown on their faces, because Calli spoke up. “There’s a place we can rest up ahead.” Calli said, and then added, after a pause, “an- it’s an old place. We can spend a night there..”

“Oh yes, please,” Gura said, perking up, “cause I- well, one of you’d have to carry me if we did it all in one go.”

“Too much fish, eh?” Amelia asked, “I told you you needed to lay off the salmon, but did you listen?”

“Oi!” Gura narrowed her eyes as she spoke, “You’ve been complaining just as much as me, and don’t even try-” Amelia let the Atlantean go on, ribbing her a few more times, just for the fun of it. The banter was always a nice distraction, but she only paid it half a mind. What was more interesting was the silent conversation between Calli and Kara, now that they thought the other two were distracted. 

The two were having some sort of stare down, though over what Amelia could not know, and would not, because Calli broke them out of it. “It’s still a fair ways to my rest stop. Best get moving, before it gets any colder. I hope no one minds heights- there’s a bit of a bridge on the way.”

Calli led the three up the mountain, taking the established path until they came to what looked like a great boulder, fallen from the cliffs above. But all Calli had to do was tap it with the blade of her scythe, and it seemed to melt away, revealing a second path, one coated in fog and frost. Just looking past Calli sent the hairs on Amelia’s neck to attention. Wherever that path led- people weren’t welcome.

“Uh- that- uh-” Amelia started to say, trying to find the polite way to say she'd rather freeze than face whatever was in that fog.

“It’s a place for my folk.” Calli said, “don’t worry about the fog, it's just there to hide…. Just don’t worry about it. As long as you can’t see them, they won’t hurt you.”

“Well that’s comforting.” Gura said with a half laugh, “but you know, maybe we don’t have to rest. I’m sure we can make it up before it gets too late, right? Calli?” But the reaper had already turned to the path, apparently committed to it.

“They’re nothing terribly dangerous, just stick close to us and do not stray off the path,” Kiara said, though even she looked unnerved as the fog shifted and twirled, “we’ve- I’ve been through one of these once. We’d be fine, even if something were to jump out at us.”

“Right. we’ll stick right with you.” Amelia said. “No detours, no mistakes.”

Which was, of course, not what happened. The first few minutes were easy, and Calli promised them that they were nearly halfway to the bridge, which would mark their safety, and on the other side, a place to rest, at least, for a little while. 

But the further they got in, the slicker the ground beneath them became. Amelia wasn’t quite as sure footed as she liked to imagine herself, and Gura even less so. It took a single pebble and a patch of ice to trip them up, and after a half moment of blind panic and rebalancing, the two were very firmly off of the path.

“Amelia-” Gura drew out the last syllable in her name, the fog now too thick for the pair to see more than a few feet in front of them. 

“I’m here,” Amelia responded, taking a long pair of steps towards Gura, who now had her trident in hand. It was a fine weapon, made of greenish steel, bejeweled and infused with old seaborn magic. Most of the time, it didn’t really exist, or it was somewhere else. None of the four were well versed in magical theory, and all they really knew was that she could summon and dismiss it at will.

Amelia's armaments were much less spectacular. She didn't quite know what bringing a modern weapon so far back into the timeline would do to the world, so she had settled on knives and bows, though she much preferred the first. And that is what she had, a single, elegant knife, inscribed with her name and birthdate, an old reminder of where she had come from.

They were back to back now, and Amelia could feel the very edge of Gura's tail brushing against her calf. It was the Atlanteans way of keeping track of her, the only real use Amelia had seen for that tail outside of the water. Usually, it was a sweet sort of thing. She'd feel it when they were in a crowd, in a tavern, Gura's way of making sure the two didn't get separated. In a fight, it was a reassurance, letting Amelia know she could trust her left, or in this case, her back, would be safe.

But safe, that was a foreign word in the fog, and even that gentle touch didn't calm Amelia.

“Amelia! Gura!” The two could hear Kiara calling for them, and even a great burst of flame as she tried to burn away the fog that separated them. But they could also hear something else, roiling and growling in the fog. They settled into fighting stances, back to back, waiting for- for whatever it was to come out of that fog. Amelia could hear it, drawing closer, could see a vaguely humanoid shape, just an outline in the fog. And as it neared, she could see the face, the eyes, the gaping maw-

_Nope nope nope nope back out go GO GO-_

Amelia’s instincts tended to be on point about most things. So when they screamed at her to flee, she did. Though, of course, she did it in a rather unconventional way. She leaned back, almost falling into Gura, and spun the hands on her watch, letting the flow take them both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So- I realize that Ina still has not made an appearance- she will (and probably drive the main part of the plot for a while) but I kinda got distracted with this whole reaper stopping place- so we're going to do this for a chapter more. 
> 
> But, rest assured, the Tako will be arriving soon.
> 
> Cheers


	3. The Flow

The Flow. That’s what Amelia called it. The space between worlds, the place she went to traverse time itself. It felt like falling, traveling through the ages. The Flow itself was one great, long tunnel, with little branches here and there, places where she could get a glimpse of ideas and times that might have or might still come to pass. All of it was colored with neon yellows and blues, zipping by her- them, Amelia reminded herself. She’d very much meant to take Gura with her, and she could feel the Atlantean at her back, frozen for a moment.

Amelia used that time to turn herself, grabbing hold of Gura as they came face to face. “Hang on to me,” Amelia said, “and your trident. I wouldn’t want to lose you in… all this.”

“It’s-” Gura paused, wide eyed, straining to take in the lights around them, “It’s beautiful. Where are we?”

“It’s the space between times.” Amelia said, “or, at least, that’s how I think about it. We’re going back a few minutes, but we can catch our breaths here.”

Gura was too distracted to respond, instead allowing herself to drift further from Amelia, watching the Flow pass them both. “Why- what’s with all the colors?” She asked, as she twisted further around, “and the light? Is this really time?”

Amelia’s grip had loosened as Gura had begun to drift away, and for a split second, she could feel Gura’s own grip relaxing, ready to allow her to drift further into the Flow. Amelia’d never taken anyone with her, and falling with Gura, just this once, had been instinct alone, and now here they were, drifting apart ever so slowly, in a world whos rules Amelia did not know.

And, for a moment, Amelia allowed herself to panic, worrying over the idea of losing Gura to the Flow. What if she couldn’t find her again? What if she really could lose whole people? So she grabbed hold of Gura, pulling her by the hand, maybe a little too hard, as the two collided and were sent into a slow roll for a few moments.

“Ame- Amelia-” Gura broke down into giggles and Amelia flushed and turned her head, refusing to look down at Gura. “Aww, Ame, were you worried?”

Amelia just about dumped them out of the Flow then. She could have, if she really wanted to, but she shrugged off that impulse. “I really don’t know what goes on here,” she said instead, “and- maybe. Shut up, shark. You’re the one who got us caught in that- that- whatever it was.”

“Fog?” Gura supplied, “That one was a team effort, and you damn well know it- plus, you didn’t have to take me. Would it really have made any difference?”

“Would you rather I have left you back there?” Amelia asked,.

Gura was silent for a long moment, and Amelia allowed herself to look back towards her. She had allowed some distance between the two, but they were still falling oh so close, and still linked at one hand.

Amelia wasn't a romantic. She'd never felt inclined to wax poetic about the beauty of anyone. But in that moment, with the neons coloring the world around them, and Gura looking up at her with that damned smile... Maybe just once, she could have. 

“No- no I don’t think I would.” Gura finally said, breaking Amelia out of her spell. Gura glanced between Amelia and the lights, asking, “What- what are we doing now?”

“We go back a few minutes. Straight into our bodies, nothing horribly special.” Amelia said, “And we don’t make the same mistakes twice. Are you ready?”

“Yeah,” Gura said, finally seeming to focus on Amelia, “Yeah, lets go.”

That part, finding the place she was supposed to be in time, it was as natural as breathing to Amelia. It was easy to guide the Flow to where she needed to be, and even with her companion, it only took her a moment to find just the right branch to go through.

“-were to jump out at us.” Kiara was saying. Amelia didn’t respond as she had done the last time around, instead closing her eyes and letting the momentary nausea of occupying her body was over her. 

“What- Amelia, what the hell?” Kiara asked. “Why- Gura?”

Gura didn’t bother answering her, instead taking a few short steps to the cliffside. For a moment, Amelia thought the farmers dried meat was going to make a reappearance. Calli had turned back to them, glancing between the three, and before she got a chance to ask, Amelia answered both of their questions. 

“Time travel stuff.” Amelia said, watching Gura with one eye, and keeping the other on the fog, “you know how you said to never stray off the path, don't see what’s in the fog, all that?”

Kiara let out a long sigh. “I... I didn’t know you could take other people.” She said, “just- are you two alright? We can rest here for a moment. Night won’t come for another hour or so, and it’ll take less than that to get to the- er, to get to Calli’s resting place.”

“We’ll- we’ll be fine.” Amelia said, pausing to glance to Gura, who was still leaning over that cliffside, “Gura’s just- gotta wait a moment. The nausea usually passes after a few seconds.”

It did, and after a moment to recollect, the four pressed on, into the fog. This time, however, Both Kiara and Calli made not so subtle attempts to stay as close as possible to the two, and Amelia and Gura- they may or may not have clung together, both for stability and, perhaps, for fear of getting lost in the fog alone.

The bridge Calli had promised wasn’t just a rope and wood, but made of heavy, cut stone, traversing a ravine with no bottom in sight. 

“How far- how far does this go down?” Gura asked, poking her head over the side. The fog was lighter on the bridge, almost unnoticeable, and they still couldn’t see where it led.

“All the way.” Calli replied. “If you fall off- you’ll probably starve before you hit the bottom. So don’t.”

“Riight.” Gura said, taking a step away from the edge. “Not tempting fate here.”

Across the bridge was something Amelia hadn’t quite expected. A bowl, carved out of the mountain, paved with smooth stone. In its center was a fire pit, well stocked with wood and tinder, and there were even straw beds- maybe years old, sure, but it would be much better than sleeping on the side of the mountain.  


It took them a good quarter of an hour to settle in, a roaring fire in the pit, thanks to Kiara, and nothing but dried meats and salted fish for dinner. Amelia supposed she should have been thankful the farmer had provided them with food, instead of forcing the four to forage for a day or so before coming up the mountain. After a few days of travel with him, though, even the best of his home grown beef was starting to wear at Amelia.

“It smells.” Gura said as they finished eating. Amelia turned to her as the Atlantean wrinkled her nose, “Smells like- squid, maybe? Old squid. Hasn’t been here in a while squid. Who’s eating squid this far up a mountain?”

Calli laughed at that, a short, deep chuckle. It was a rare thing- at least when she thought she was being watched. “I- I don’t know.” Calli said. “Squid’s pretty rare up here.”

“It’s probably just the fish.” Amelia said after an awkward pause. “Little shork brain doesn’t know the difference anymore, been away from the sea too long.”

“Hey!” And with that, the talk of squid was lost for the night. It took a good long time, but after both Kiara and Gura’s breaths had steadied out, Amelia turned to the last awake member of their party. The untiring reaper, scythe still in one hand, eyes fixated on the bridge.

“So- squid.” Amelia started with. Calli turned to her, the firelight reflecting off her blade and casting long, menacing shadows from her spiked armor. “No one in their right mind is bringing squid all the way up here.”

Calli didn’t answer for a few moments, and Amelia was half convinced she wouldn’t. “You know,” Calli said, “it is possible to be too smart for your own good. Or too curious."

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Amelia responded. She wasn’t going to let this drop, not when she still knew next to nothing about who was waiting for them at the top of this mountain. “Squid?”

Calli sighed, finally turning her eyes from the bridge to Amelia. “Before,” she glanced to Kiara, eyes softening for a fraction of a second before they resumed their icy façade, “Before a lot of things, and after I’d figured out Kiara wasn’t going to be dying anytime soon, I fell in with some interesting folk. The kind that liked to push the boundaries on what magic could do. You know how Gura, she’s- sort of like a shark?” Amelia nodded, and Calli continued. “Well- one of them- she was another seaborn. Not Atlantean- and instead of shark…”

“Squid?” Amelia filled in.

“Something like that.” Calli said. “That’s what she likened it too, anyway. And Three-Step Peak was one of her usual haunts. Kiara- she never knew her, but from the description she gave, I’m sure it's her who’s waiting for us up at the top.”

“So why not just- tell us all this before coming up here?” Amelia asked. “We’re-”

“Because she was playing with things.” Calli cut her off, “ideas that-'' she paused, looking for the words, “she was toying with powers beyond any of us. Searching for the things that lurked between worlds. The message she sent was cryptic- I have no idea what in all the hells is waiting for us in that observatory. What she might have done. It could be something simple- take a few heads, bust her out of a cage-”

“Or it could be an eldritch god.” Amelia said. “Right- fun. Wonderful. What’s her name, then?”

“Ninomae Ina'nis.” Calli said after a pause, “though- she went by Ina, when I was with her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Off boi this was written at three am and will get edited soon- probably over breakfast. 
> 
> Also- time to go retrieve the fifth member of the team


	4. The Eldritch Priestess

The last leg of their journey up passed in a sort of haze. Nothing happened, no monsters or men leaped out of the shadows to claw at them, but Amelia couldn’t shake off the dread that had come from learning what could be waiting for them. 

She’d told Gura, early in that morning. About Ina, about what could be coming. She deserved to know, and...

Amelia liked Kiara and Calli. She trusted them, would until the end of their journeys. But they weren’t like Amelia. They didn’t die- or, in Kiara’s case, didn’t stay dead. They didn’t see the world the way she did, and they often forgot that while they could be incinerated, or lose a limb and walk it off, both of their other companions would very much not be able to.

“So- what is waiting for us up here?” Gura asked. The four were just outside the Observatory. Up close it was even uglier than it had been from afar. With packed snow clinging to every crevice, and a single, barred door between them and whatever lay within. “Asking future Amelia, if she’s here.”

“Not a clue,” Amelia was watching the roof of the observatory, waiting for someone to be smart enough to pop their head over and see four waiting targets below. “It’s my first time too.”

“So- does that mean we won? Cause if I’m asking you this question- it means there’s no older Amelia coming back, cause then-”

“Gura, we can talk about the messy part of time travel after we’re done here.” Amelia said, and maybe she’d been a bit too sharp, or maybe she just didn’t like the put out look on Gura, because she followed it with, “look, I’ll buy us a few rounds and some good food at the next tavern we stop at, and we can talk all about it then. But right now- I’m pretty sure Calli’s about to kick that door in.”  


She was right, of course, but Kiara at least had the courtesy to warn them. “Get your trident out,” Kiara said, with her own sword already drawn, “And try to stay behind us. Calli-”

“On it.” The Reaper said, and with a singular ‘GUH’ she smashed the door in, allowing the momentum of her kick to lead her into the entrance, scythe swinging in tight arcs, clearly anticipating a fight.

After a moment of nothing but silence, Calli spoke. “You three should get in here- now. And keep your weapons out.”

Inside- inside really looked quite normal. There were half a dozen desks crammed against walls, a few chairs here and there, mountains and mountains of parchment, and, of course, the six foot wide summoning circle, complete with a great, floating eye above it. It was a terrifying thing, the eye, bloodshot and twitching, straining to take everything in at once.

“What in…” Gura trailed off into Deep-Speech, though Amelia could guess what she was saying. 

“Kiara? Calli?” Amelia asked, forcing herself to loosen up, “should we be running?”

“It’s too late for that- whoever’s eye that is, they’ve seen us.” Calli said, “if they want to give us a fight-” the eye before them closed, and there was nothing. No eyelid, no sign there had ever been a great eye floating before them. It was just gone.

“Well that’s… unsettling.” Gura said, forcing a smile. “Should we get moving? Stairs are back over there- and I don’t really want to be down here. Ever again, if possible.”

The stairs were narrow and steep, crammed into a corner to save space for an already small workroom. They entered into what had been a dormitory. Now, though, it looked to be the center of some great cataclysm. The beds were torn and broken, flung into corners and against walls as if a giant had been playing with them, And, against the far wall, one handcuffed to a metal beam just above her head, was one of the deep folk. Dark hair, and short, tentacle-like additions framed closed eyes and a half open mouth. 

“Ina?” Calli asked, taking a step towards the stranger.

And then one long step back as Ina’s eyes opened, pitch black and devoid of feature. “Come to save me, at last?” Her voice was akin to an ancient beast, low ang gravely, and seemed to ring off the walls and dig into Amelia’s spin, sending shivers down her back. 

There was a long moment where no one acted, as the five watched each other and waited for something to happen. It was Ina who broke the spell, shaking her head and blinking furiously, as though clearing dirt from her eyes. When she refocused on them, they were much more… human, in nature. With irises and pupils and the whole lot.

“Ah- sorry, friends.” She said, her voice now small and mellow, “some of the after effects of what I have been doing- well, they can be interesting. I don’t suppose I could ask for a hand?” She wiggled her own as she said it, still chained to the wall.

“Uh- Kiara?” Amelia asked, “I can probably get her out, but-”

“Do it,” Kiara said, “We didn’t come all the way up here to turn back empty handed.”

“Yes, yes,” Ina said, as Amelia approached. “I know- it wasn’t the most fantastic introduction, but we’ll get along famously. You’ve told me.”

“I’m sorry-” Amelia paused her attempt to break the chains, “have we met?”

“Not- not quite yet, I suppose.” Ina said, tilting her head, “but, we do, quite well. All the yous I’ve ever met have told me so.”

“Riiiiight-” Amelia said, and with a sharp jerk, broke the last of the chain links leading up to her manacle. “Sure. I can’t get you out of the manacle- sorry. We’ll have to get a locksmith for that.”

“Ah, don’t worry about that, see, I’ve got the key right here.” And indeed she did, pulling a key from somewhere within the folds of her robes, “it was more the Elder One watching me that I needed rescue from, not the chains.”

“The Elder One?” Gura asked, “what- Kiara, you sure we should be rescuing her?”

“Yes,” Kiara said, “but we need to move- now. Trust me when I say you don’t want to know what an Elder is.”

Gura was ahead of her- already half a step down the stairs before she froze. “Uh, guys?” She said, backpedaling. “Don’t think we’re going out the way we came in.” They could all hear the sounds of flailing and desks crashing together, now, and Gura's face told them whatever was down there was coming up, fast.

“That’s three years of research it’s wasting.” Ina said, shaking her head, “what a shame. To think, we might have been able-”

The five of them set themselves for a fight, or four of them did. Ina seemed to be content to watch the stairs beneath them, though Amelia couldn't really say how useful she'd be in a fight. Kiara spoke before they could get into the fight, though.

“Gura, Amelia, get her onto the roof and get out of here.” Kiara said, lighting the longsword she carried ablaze. “This- it shouldn’t be able to follow us too far. Find a way down the mountain, and do it fast.”

“But you’ll- Amelia cut herself off. Kiara would be reborn, if she did anything stupid. “Right, come on- and good hunting.” With a last nod to Kiara, Amelia dashed for the stairs, Gura a half step behind her. Ina watched the rising mass of limbs- tentacles really, but they were foreign, and wrong, and nothing like her own squid like ones. 

The roof- the roof offered very little in ways of getting off the damn mountain. There were the telescopes, yes, and a map of the stars spread out on a last desk, and a great basin, once filled with oil or water- probably for purposes of some magic rite or another, now empties and barren. Other than that, there was nothing save the cold, stone tiles beneath them, and the smell of burning flesh behind them. The only good thing was the slope on the back side of the observatory. The storms often blew in from that side, and dumped their snow there, so it was one long slide down, or so it appeared.

“Any ideas?” Amelia asked them after a moment, “Because unless we can turn that desk into the world's most dangerous sled, I think we might be jumping.”

“Ah, well, I don’t know about the desk- but our basin- that’s quite the idea, no?” Ina asked. She was right, it was smoot, and curved, and probably their best bet to get down the mountain. But it was metal, and thick, which meant it was far too heavy for them to get up over the lip of the roof.

“If we could get it moving, maybe,” Amelia said, “But I don’t-”

“Don’t worry about that,” Ina said, “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve. Just get in and find something to grab onto- it’ll be quite the ride.”

“We’re incredibly dead, huh?” Gura asked, climbing into the basin. It could fit both of them, just barely, and the edges were lined with candle holders that, in theory, they could hold onto.

“Well, if we are,” Amelia said, “you’ll be getting a visit from future Amelia soon.” 

“Are we ready?” They both turned to see Ina, now floating above the ground due to some unknown magic, with dozens of squid-like tentacles pouring out of some unseen portal behind her. “I’ll try to keep us steady, but make sure to hold on- who knows how bumpy the ride down will be.”

“Oh,” Amelia said to herself, as she felt the tentacles begin to lift their makeshift sled, “we are so, so dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another 3 am chapter, and Ina makes her actual-real-not-just-a-mention-appearance


	5. The Eye

Gura and Amelia got a half second, as Ina lifted the basin over the low wall of the roof, to look to each other, and really regret the decisions they had made. Could Ina even guide them down? Were they her tentacles? Why did she even have them, if the other… thing had just been a lump of tentacles with an attitude?

Those would be questions for later, as Amelia could feel the basin being lifted, and set on the very edge of the roof, propped precariously on the narrow lip that had been made to keep pens from rolling off. Amelia heard it crack beneath their weight, and, at her side, a little, keening whimper from Gura, as they got to see just how far they would be going. 

And, while it had looked like their best option at first- that hadn’t made it a good one. There were great jutting rocks at what would be the end of their sled, and snowy cliffs Ina would have to navigate with nothing but the power of her tentacles. 

“Hold on tight.” Ina said, and Amelia could hear the laugh she was holding in, “it’s- it might get a bit bumpy.” Amelia really hoped she knew what she was doing. Otherwise- well, that’s what the watch was for.

Amelia felt Gura reach out, and she allowed the Atlantean to lock hands with her, wincing as Gura squeezed hard enough to make her knuckles go white. “Gura-”

Amelia didn’t get to finish asking her companion to let off, because with a great heave, they were over the edge and falling. And there wasn’t time to do much else but-

Gura’s scream was a funny thing, more of a long shriek than anything else. Amelia would remember that later, and tease her for it, but in that moment, she was right with her, yelling the whole way down. 

At first it was the panic, the blind, animal instinct that told her going this fast was bad, and falling was bad, the sane part of her brain. But, after years upon years of time traveling, Amelia- she’d learned to tune that part out, and have a bit of fun, on the line between life and death. 

She was laughing, by the time they got to the rocks below. Full on laughing, turning to Gura, who was still clutching at Amelia’s hand and very much not laughing, though she’d run out of breath with which to shriek. “Come on, shark girl,” Amelia said, trying to raise her head up enough to see what lay ahead, “live a little.”

And then they went over the first of the cliffs, and Amelia went weightless for a second, felt her body begin to rise as the basin began to fall, and Gura, sweet, wonderful, life saving Gura, pulled her back down by her hand, and they hit the next patch of snow with enough force to slam Amelia back down, her head ringing painfully.

The rest of the slide down the mountain passed in a sort of haze for Amelia. She knew- somewhere, something that happened that wasn’t quite right, but her head felt like it was splitting open, and even the sound of the wind rushing by them felt like it was hammering at her ears.

"-me? Ame, we’re done? Can you-” Gura’s voice, once it cut through the ringing, was incredibly loud.

“I’m fine, I’m fine- you don’t need to yell,” Amelia said, shaking her head- _mistake, mistake mistake,_ her body told her, as she lit up with whole new pains.

“I wasn’t- Ame, you sure you’re okay?” Gura asked. “You don’t sound like it.”

“There were a few landings I am not- not quite proud of,” Ina added, “are you certain you did not wound yourself on any of them?”

“I’m fine.” Amelia repeated. “We should get walking, to- where are we?” Amelia squinted against the snow and sun's glare, trying to answer the question for herself.

“The backside of Three-Step.” Gura said, “Drumver’s Hollow is- maybe three or four days from here. That’s- probably our best bet.”

“Right-” Amelia said, forcing herself to think, “lead- take the lead, then.”

Gura wanted to say more, Amelia could tell, but instead, she turned away from the mountain and started walking.

Amelia- she really should have been side by side with Gura. She had a better sense of direction (though, didn’t everyone, when compared to the shark) and twice, Ina had to guide the three back onto the right track.

She could hear the other two talking, and knew she should be a part of that conversation. Ina seemed interesting at least, and Gura nudged Amelia a few times, trying to get her involved. Gura was good like that, a good friend, a good person, and at very least, Amelia tried. But she was tired, and had the kind of migraine that consumed everything save for the ground in front of her.

They’d entered one of the forest glades that covered the great dips between mountains a half hour or so into their journey. Many called the Green Valleys, though they had a different name, one Amelia couldn’t remember at the best of times.

The path through them wasn’t easy, but it was much more forgiving than that of the mountains, with many rest stops, and plenty of places to hunt or forage, if need be. They could wait, now, in the cover of the trees, safe (or at least, Amelia hoped they were safe) from any prying eyes.

“How long do you think until they’re back?” Gura had to poke Amelia to get her to realize the question had been directed at her.

“Calli’s probably already reformed- she’s not supposed to be able to die, just retreat to her own place.” Amelia said, “And- Kiara-” There was some thought there, something about the two that would delay their coming for a little bit, but Amelia couldn’t remember it for the life of her. “I don’t know.” She finally said, “Soon, hopefully.”

“Maybe- “ Amelia finally stopped them as they came to one of the promised rest stops, which was no more than a clearing and a firepit, really, but it would be enough, “maybe we should take a bit of a rest.” 

She was thankful for the trees, and the shade, and the fact that neither Ina nor Gura questioned her. Gura, who’d been watching her carefully, and now who’s shark tail swished with worry.  


“I- uh,” Amelia could feel the world slipping out from under her as she finally allowed her body to rest, “I think I might be taking a nap, now.”

“Ame, try to stay awake,” Gura started to say, “I know you don’t- Ame?”

But Amelia, she was already lost to the world.

She woke slowly, but without pain- without anything at all, really. There was nothing but a deep, black void around her. 

“Not quite awake, but it will do.” The voice- she'd heard that voice. Heard it from Ina, in those first few moments of meeting her. “Welcome to the void, Amelia.”

“What- who are you.” Amelia was nothing- no body, no arms, no knife, no watch. She could only hear.

“I am afraid that is… a bit hard to explain.” The voice said. “Though, you have met my kin. The Elder, as he prefers the mortals to call him. I would tell you his real name, but it would be- ah, you don’t have the ability to comprehend such a thing, anyways.”

“Why-” Amelia didn’t get to finish. The darkness roiled around her, and before her, a great eye opened. It was quite the same as the one that had been in the observatory, save for the fact that there was no summoning circle around it, just a great eye, floating in the void.

“You are here because you currently are straddling the barrier between consciousness and- well, nothing. Quite the serious wound, you have.” The voice really wasn’t coming from the eye, but with nothing else to focus on, Amelia imagined it was. “Giving quite the fright to your companions, as well. You will have to apologize to my dear apprentice, once you awaken.”

“Though, that is not the only reason.” The Eye said. “I wanted to see you- the you you were, before what I know. Quite the interesting specimen, an Enigma, destined to defy destiny, fated to break fate.”

“What in the hell is that supposed to mean?” Amelia asked. She wished she had something, anything. This void- it was starting to get to her. She couldn't even tell if she was panicking, with nothing but her mind, and even it was too busy trying to figure out what was going on.

“Ah, where is the fun in telling you?” The Eye responded, “and even if I wanted to- our time is up. Good luck- and remember- I am watching.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, This is a bit earlier than usual (the normal idea is to do one bit every two days) but I had a sort of idea that I wanted to get in, not quite in this part, but I was editing old parts and figured why not add more.
> 
> So- basically, Gura's tail is now mentioned, as are Kiara's ear feathers. Gura's tail, for now kinda got a bit more in the second chapter, and will get more use later
> 
> If you want the TL;DR, it's sensitive and she uses it to keep track of mainly Amelia, that's about it.  
> Other than that, cheers


	6. The Wait

Ninomae Ina’nis was used to strange things happening around her. She wasn’t the warrior Gura was, nor the… whatever it was Amelia was, but she could think her way into and out of almost anything. 

It was a blessing and a curse really, and part of the reason she’d wound up chained to a wall. But, she’d managed to wriggle her way around that- even if they had cut the escape a little too close for comfort. Now, she had to find a way out of the consequences of their great slide down.

The tools at her disposal were not very promising- One time traveler, passed out against a tree, one Atlantean, of the sharkish variety, who alternated between pacing around the tree Amelia had collapsed against, and taking the traveler’s pulse, as though she might have died in the four seconds since last check.

Ina- well, she’d done everything she knew how to do. Lay her flat, make sure she wasn’t bleeding, even tried casting a few healing spells of her own, though they were never meant to fix anything beyond shallow wounds or, at a stretch, a broken bone. 

Still, Ina searched for anything else. Amelia had come to rescue her, and it had been Ina’s plan, and sled, that had gotten them where they were. Granted, it was also the only way to get down, but Ina nagged at herself anyway.

“Gura,” Ina had one last idea, but she needed the Atlantean to settle down, “Can you- can you sit by Amelia for a moment?”

“Yeah, but what are you-” 

“I’m going to see if we can get some help from higher places.” Ina answered her before the question was even finished. “Just- don’t freak out, when it does come.”

Because it would come, Ina told herself. Or Amelia was fine, one or the other. The two didn’t know it, Ina doubted even Kiara or Calli knew it, but they were each a piece of a much larger plan, one that stretched both years into the past and hundreds of years into the future. And Amelia- folk like her were hard to come by. She needed to be okay.

So Ina reached back into her mind, to the little hole, right where her consciousness met nothingness. It was hard to describe, even harder to find, at first. But practice and necessity had made it easier, and there, there she found it. Them. The Ancient One, the great chess master, playing a game against its kin.

 _Oh, Ancient One,_ Ina began, _we require your aide._

She felt It roiling in the dark, a loose thread of Its mind gathering what It needed to know from Ina’s, before she felt Its attention truly turn to her.

 _Little One,_ It’s unfiltered voice was- it was horrific. Like nightmares given life. Gurtteral and sharp, and if Ina had needed ears to hear it, she was sure they would be bleeding. _Allow me to see through you._

As Ina opened her eyes, she saw Gura flinch backwards, wide eyed, reaching for a trident before she settled herself. “Uh, Ina?” Gura asked, “what-”

“Fear not,” It was the Ancient using her mouth to speak, in the same voice as had been used up at the observatory, that first time, “I am… an ally.”

Not a friend, of course, because people like Gura (and people like the Little One, before she’d poked her head down the right paths) were… bugs. Specs on the wall. It was power, It was grace. Yet, Amelia had perked It’s interest. It wanted- no, It needed to know more. A moment in her mind, to see what the traveler truly knew of her past and future, perhaps?

Ina felt the Ancient one slither out of her mind, taking with it its thoughts, returning Ina to her rightful place. ”Sorry, sorry.” Ina said to Gura, her voice returning to its usual mellow tone, “that- happens, sometimes.”

She was more interested in turning over what she’d managed to overhear from the Ancient than truly explain herself. How did Amelia come into Its game? Time travelers- well, they weren’t common, Ina knew, but for beings like the Ancient and Elder, they were still mere mortals, to be used and discarded.

Gura was not so inclined to wait in silence, and after a few moments of silence from Ina, she spoke. “So- is she going to be okay?” She asked, “did your… ally? Did he say anything?”

“Patron,” Ina corrected, an automatic response, “and- yes, and no. Whatever she’s getting into, the Ancient One wants to see it through. Or at least, is interested enough that It will make sure she gets to the end of her journey. If she needs help, It will deliver.”

Gura paused for a few, long seconds before she spoke again. “I don’t- I don’t know if I like the sound of that.” She said, “but if it will make sure Amelia isn’t… if it’ll help, that’s better than nothing.”

There was a minute of two of long, awkward silences as they watched over the motionless Amelia. The walk over had been- it had been enjoyable, really. Amelia hadn’t said much, but Gura had been telling her about the campaigns in the lowlands, and which castles served the best fish, and how Calli kept all the letters and of the three sent her while she was away on other reaping duties.

“You two,” The silence got to Ina first, “are close, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Gura said, nodding before she continued, “we’ve been through a lot. And we’ve got pretty similar stories. It’s nice to have someone who knows where you’re coming from- if you know what I mean.”

“You can time travel too?” Ina asked, raising an eyebrow, “that could have been useful, back up the mountain.”

Gura snorted and shook her head, “no- no, we’re just… wanderers. Far from home. Happy to be all the way out here too, for one reason or another.”

It was easy, after that, to slip into more casual conversation, pass the time. They set themselves in, gathered firewood and foraged, for Ina’s sake. Gura was a strict predator, and when Ina offered her some of the wild berries they’d gathered, Gura shook her head and hefted her trident, intent on hunting some food of her own.

It took the better part of that next day for Amelia to rejoin them. It was a day Gura spent getting closer and closer to Amelia, until she dropped all pretense, huddling next to the other in a miserable ball of shark. 

The first sign Ina got was a passing strand of the Ancient One, retreating from whatever conversation it had been having with Amelia.

 _Interesting indeed_ , It said as It passed, _your companions may match you in that regard, at least, Little One_

Ina almost laughed at that. ‘Interesting’ had been the Ancient One’s justification for almost all of It’s meddling in the human world. Ina liked to think It valued them more that It was wont to say, as It never seemed to be able to keep away from the human world.

“Amelia Watson you absolute _ass_.” Gura’s voice broke Ina out of her musings, and she turned to see a very groggy Amelia, though her eyes were finally opened, and Gura, leaning halfway over her, arms crossed.

“Hey, Gura,” Amelia said, blinking a few times, “what’d I miss?”

“What’d you miss?” Gura’s voice was half anger, half disbelief, “that’s what you have to say? How about ‘I’m so sorry, Gura, for giving you a heart attack,” or ‘I’m so sorry Gura, for being a big dum dum.’”

“That- that does remind me.” Amelia said, wincing as she sat herself up, “Ina- I’m supposed to tell you I’m sorry for worrying you.”

Ina could see the smirk on the time travelers face, her head already half turned to receive Gura’s incensed. “Amelia!”

“Welcome back,” Ina said, “we have- we’ve got a lot to talk about.”


	7. The Hounds

Ina decided she liked Amelia. It wasn’t a hard thing, really, now that she wasn’t half dead. She had a sly smile, and a wit to match. She was quite different from the Amelia Ina had met, though it had only been in passing. That version of her… it was a much darker version of her, and far more demanding. 

“So,” Amelia said, once Gura had finally settled down, though she never strayed more than a tail length away from the traveler, “How’d you wind up there? I would have asked earlier but I was, uh… you know.”

“I- yes.” Ina paused for a moment. The true story was a complex mess, one that stretched back nearly twenty years. “I was… doing some research. Theoretical ideas, ones that weren’t well liked by the Elder and his kind.”

“Yeah, what is his deal?” Amelia asked, “why is he such a- er, mean dude?”

Ina almost laughed at that, “they’re- the idea of the average mortal knowing what I was getting close too, it scared them,” she said, “though, the joke really is on them, I was nowhere close to figuring out the application part of the whole thing.”

“Ah, yeah, that is kinda important.” Amelia said.

“So- what now?” Gura asked, “the Elder is just going to let us go?”

“Oh no,” Ina said, “I expect he’ll be able to create another breach into this world in- how long has it been since we escaped the observatory?”

“Two days?” Gura answered, “three by the end of tonight.”

“Ah- then it would have already happened. The hounds will be hunting us- we’ll have to deal with them soon.”

“The hounds.” Amelia repeated, “that doesn’t fill me with confidence.”

“They’re quite the terrifying creatures.” Ina nodded as she said it, “not true hounds, but void given from, very nearly unkillable.”

“That’s fun,” Amelia said, “and- how long till they get here? And how do we kill them if they’re- you know, unkillable?”

“Soon, I imagine,” Ina paused for a moment, “tomorrow, most likely. They tend to be not immune to more… esoteric weapons. Knives that have traveled through time, tridents spelled with old Atlantean magic, the like.”

“Ah- right.” Gura said, “we do have those. So- we should be fine, right?”

“Oh- no. They’ll tear us to shreds before we can kill all of them.” Ina said, “we’ll have to keep moving, keep the main pack as far away from us as we can. Hopefully we can last long enough for Calli to find us, she can take quite a few by herself. Enough for the rest of us to finish the pack.”

“Where are those two anyway?” Gura turned to Amelia as she spoke, “do you know? Cause most of the time they’re back in what, three hours?”

“Something like that.” Amelia answered, “but I- er, I didn’t intend to, but I might have overheard a bit of a private conversation. They’ve got some business with death- and you know how he is.”

“Ah, yeah,” Gura nodded. “I guess that’d do it.”

Ina, supremely out of the loop, glanced between the two, “is there something I’m missing?” she asked.

“Death- he doesn’t like Kiara’s whole rebirth thing.” Gura was the one to answer her, “like, really doesn’t like it. Has tried to make Calli- you know,” she mimed the slicing of her neck, “over it. They almost threw down not too long ago- right after Amelia showed up, actually.”

“Ah- yeah.” Amelia said, frowning, “but it doesn’t really matter. What matters is these hounds. We need to get moving at dawn if we’re going to outrun them. If we can get to Drumver’s Hollow, we can get horses, and food- and our lives become a lot easier.”

That was true enough. Ina had heard of the town, an offshoot from Roseport. It was a small thing, settled by hard folk looking for ore to bring into the trade city. It was a fine place, in the stories Ina had heard, though she’d never visited. And horses- well, they might not be able to outrun the hounds, but they might be able to buy the three a little more time.

The three had decided to settle in for the night. Amelia had woken an hour or so before sun fall, and with so little light in the great forest already, continuing seemed a good way to get lost or hurt. Gura, Ina noted, seemed to be an expert sleeper. After forcing Amelia to promise to wake her for second watch, (a promise Ina wasn’t quite sure Amelia would keep) she bid the two goodnight, and just like that- she was out. Day clothes and hard ground, yet she seemed perfectly comfortable. 

Ina shifted around, trying to find the least hard spot of dirt and rock to settle on. It wouldn’t grant her any better a sleep, she knew, but she was not quite the adventurer the other two were.

“You said you’ve met me.” Amelia spoke after a pause. “Was it… what was I like?”

Ina didn’t answer for a moment. “You were,” she paused, trying to reach for the correct way to say ‘you were a major jerk,’ “you’d lost. Whatever thing you’d come back to do had failed. There wasn’t much left of you to really see. You told me to do some things, say some things different. Then you were gone.”

Amelia was silent for a long time. “I’m going to go get a gun,” she finally said, “when there’s no eldritch thing breathing down our necks. And the next time I see one of those eyes, I’m not going to stop shooting till it's dead. You should probably tell your- whatever it is you call it. No more showing up in my dreams, either, or I'll find a way to kill it there.”

"I will... make sure it doesn't bother you again." It wasn't a promise Ina could keep, but it seemed to satisfy Amelia.

She didn’t say anything else, and Ina let her stew in whatever was going on in her mind. Sleep did come, eventually, but filled with dreams of great eyes, none of them friendly, all watching, waiting for something.

 _Soon,_ they whispered, _the test begins_

Ina woke with a start. It wasn't the dream that had done it, though, but Gura shaking her awake. “Come on,” the Atlantean said, “mornings here, and we need to get walking.”

Ina groaned, her back stiff and aching from the hard ground. Amelia was up, already standing and watching the path behind them. “No signs of our friends,” she said as Ina stood, “I don’t suppose they’ll be kind enough to warn us?”

“When you hear them howl,” Ina said through a yawn, “it means they’ve surrounded you and are sure you’re dead meat.”

“Wonderful.” 

They set off as soon as Ina was ready. Amelia set the pace, a hard march that Ina, with years of deskwork and writing papers, was not cut out for. Still, she didn’t complain, occasionally throwing a glance behind her, dreading the sight of one of the hounds.

They didn’t strike them in the forest, though. No, they waited until the three were well out of it, into the rolling hills on the far side of Three-Step Peak. Their path had taken them through only a brief stretch of the valley’s forest, and out into the rolling hills that led up to Drumver’s Hollow.

They heard the howls before they saw them. Twelve hounds, great beasts made of shadow and void, built to look like warhounds, as tall as Gura and nearly four times as wide. They were spaced out along the hills, and two sat before and behind them, blocking off the road.

“They're quite interesting,” Ina said, her voice shrill and high, “they- they shouldn’t have a sense of glee or sadism, but it appears whomever created them imbued-”

“Ina- magic lesson later.” Amelia said, her knife already out of its sheath. Gura had taken up a position behind them, trident gripped in both hands, “how are we getting out of this one?”

Ina let out a burst of laughter as her mind tried to furiously reconcile her dreams of the future with the reality that their future ended as soon as those hounds closed. “Out? I- were not getting out.”

Amelia cursed, reaching to her wrist- to the watch, Ina realized distantly, “I can-” she trailed off for a moment.

“Amelia?” Gura asked, half turning to look at her.

“They’re- gods damn eldritch- they’re messing with my watch. I can’t,” She shook her head, “looks like we’re cutting our way out of this one. Just stick together, there’s a way out of this one yet.”

Ina didn’t laugh again. Even she could hear the quiet resignation in Amelia’s voice. The hounds paused for a moment longer, then, as one, lunged for the three.


	8. The Reaper

Her real name wasn’t Calliope Mori. She didn’t have one- reapers weren’t made to have identities, they were made for a purpose. She hadn’t had a name for the first few centuries of her existence. Kiara had told her to choose one, in their infrequent meetings during those years. 

“Go have a life,” she’d told Calli, “I’m not going to be really dead any time soon.”

And she was right. At best, Kiara would get unlucky a few hundred years down the line, and Calli was getting tired of waiting. So she began her journeys through the mortal world, her first steps into what would eventually become her world.

But, she was still a reaper, still native to the darkness of the underworld. And when her mortal form was destroyed, she still returned there. It took her a moment to recover from the shock of the tearing, the pain still singing through her nerves. She didn’t get to die, not like Kiara did. One moment she was in the heat of combat, the next she was in the underworld, panting and halfway through a swing that cut nothing but air.

It took her a few long minutes to recover. She’d never fought anything quite like the Elder before, and it had decimated them. She’d heard Ina talk about them, when the two wandered together, eldritch beings of immense power and boundless cruelty, but meeting one up close, that was something different.

Calli shuddered. The worst part was it had been toying with them. Leaving them alive a moment longer just so they could realize how outmatched they really were. Feeling its will, the strength it had…

Calli forced herself to take a long breath, settling down into her room. It wasn’t quite the word for it, but there wasn’t really a word in the mortal languages for what it was. It was where her spirit was anchored, where the idea of her existence first took shape. 

It was a bare place, made of illusionary stone, lit by floating wisps of fire. She didn’t live there, but it connected to both the real world and its pale shadow, the underworld. Where she needed to go now. Kiara needed someone with her after she died, to guide her through the first few hours of her rebirth. And the true Reaper, her master, once her comrade…

Something had happened. Calli didn’t know if it was her, or Kiara, or him, but Death had become meaner. More insistent that Calli refuse to allow Kiara’s rebirthing cycle to complete. Calli needed to get to her, fast.

The underworld, fortunately, was an easy place to navigate for a reaper. It was easy enough to navigate for anyone, really. The great plains stretched out in every direction, its monotony broken only by the occasional pine tree, and in the far, far distance, the twin mountains of… There were many names for them. In Calli’s head, they were the good place and the bad place. They were on two very opposite sides of the plains, but almost perfect inversions of each other. One was paradise, the other the sort of place one sent the worst of the worst.

The plains- they were a sort of neutral end. A place most spirits went to wait out eternity. It wasn’t a bad existence- they could meet people, wander and hear the stories everyone had to tell- but it certainly wasn’t a good one. The spirits always cleared the way before Calli, either out of respect for her or fear of the scythe she wielded.

It was on the plains Kiara always returned to. Calli didn’t know why, the phoenix had more than earned her place in paradise, but it was much simpler to find the one living being in the fields than to have to go searching through the mountain, with all of its diversions.

Kiara’s soul burned bright and wild, and it often attracted the souls of the plains. They got to see something like her maybe once or twice in their existences, but the presence of a reaper was more than enough to clear them away. The phoenix was clad in a white dress, simple and elegant, one of the only things she shared with the spirits around her.

Kiara had settled herself by one of the great pines of the plains, sitting just under its great branches. She was running her hands over the needles, when Calli arrived, clearly fascinated by a solid, living thing in the plains of the dead. She noticed the spirits clearing the way though, and turned to face Calli, a brief spike of fear in her eyes.

“Kiara,” Calli said, pausing for a moment. She never knew how to start. There were many side effects of the phoenix's death, but one of the worst-

“Do you know me?” Kiara asked. “Do I know you?”

Calli’s heart clenched at that. She knew Kiara always came back, always got her memories back, but in the time before, the little, paranoid part of her mind whispered, _what if she doesn’t this time? What if she forgets us?_

“Yeah, you do,” Calli said, “we’re…” she trailed off. She didn’t really know what to call them, after all the years. She never had. 

“Sit, come on,” Kiara said, patting the ground next to her. “I know I’m not like them,” she glanced between Calli and the spirits as she spoke, “but I don’t know why I’m here. And you know me, and I’m- I’m-”

She was starting to panic, was the answer. Calli had only seen it happen a few times before, usually here, in the darkness of the underworld. “Hey, hey,” Calli said, taking her place at the phoenix’s side, “it’s alright. Listen, just ask me whatever you want to, okay? It’ll all come back soon enough, and until then I can tell you everything you need to know.”

“You know me that well?” Kiara asked, and there was still a hint of that panic in her voice, but she was calming down, and that was what Calli needed. 

“Yeah,” Calli answered, “you and me, we’ve been together for a long time. I know just about everything about you.”

And so it began. Calli danced around some questions, of course, (how did I die? Do I have anyone special in the real world?) but everything else, she answered. Where they met (under the first oak of the first forest) what kind of foods she ate (chicken mostly, the filthy cannibal) and what they’d been doing.

Calli could see the memories begin to come back. It would start with Kiara finishing one of Calli’s answers for her, and then a few questions later, she answered herself before the reaper even began. 

And it slowly rolled on from there, until there was a few full minutes of dead silence.

“Hey, Calli?” Kiara asked.

“I’m here.”

“Fighting in the observatory, that… things, clawed through me. I was out right away.” It was tradition, by now. Kiara was the only person more afraid of losing her memories than Calli, and she’d made Calli promise to let her remember the last moments of her previous life, just so she was sure she didn’t forget anything.

“Yeah.” Calli said, “I followed a few moments after. Got a bit careless. I think Ina and the dorks got off the roof… or at least, I hope they did.”

“Yeah, me too.” Kiara said. A moment later, she shook her head and stood, stretching and looking back towards the mountain of paradise. “I’d imagine they’d be there, if they didn’t make it.” She said, “I’d hope so, at least.”

“I’d also imagine I would know if they had.” Calli said, “All the reapers know us four, and they would know to tell me if anything happened to them.”

“Right,” Kiara said, “then there’s only one place to go.”

“Up and out,” Calli said, standing with her, “before the Reaper-”

“Before what, exactly?” The voice was like a bucket of ice being poured into here ears, and internally, she cursed. Turning back to the tree, she saw him. It, maybe. A great skeletal creature, humanoid but just not quite human, a scythe clenched in one hand, and a set of scales in the other.

“Reaper,” Kiara said, “I don't suppose you’re here to see us off?”


	9. The (other) Reaper

Calli respected the Reaper. Part of that was ingrained into who she was. She was a little Reaper, and before her was the representation of all of the Reapers, the Aspect of Death. But he had taught them, all of them, how to live as they were. How to find enjoyment in speaking to the little spirits, how to rest in paradise when they needed too. He had treated them as true people, allowed them to develop beyond the scythe and cloak.

“Reaper,” Calli bowed before him, though she did not let go of her scythe, and did not wait for him to acknowledge her before straightening, “how may I help you?”

The Reaper was silent for a long moment, glancing between the two. “Do you know what powers you play with?” He asked after a pause, “or have you blundered into this mess by accident?”

“We know,” Kiara said, “We-”

“Lies,” The Reaper snarled. Kiara took a half step back, reaching for a sword that wasn’t at her side and a shield no longer at her back, while Calli stepped in front of her, scythe now lowered between them. 

“You have no idea,” the Reaper had calmed, enough for Calli to remove the blade from between them, but his voice was still etched with anger, “of what that fool has unleashed. The phoenix’s death would have prevented something far worse. And instead of her falling to...” The Reaper trailed off, hesitating over his next few words.

“Instead of what.” Calli’s voice was icy cold, “who did it? Who was supposed to kill Kiara?”

“Calli,” Kiara warned, “maybe we shouldn’t-”

“No,” Calli cut her off, “I want to hear this. Who was it?”

There were precious few things that could permanently end the Phoenix. A reaper’s scythe was one of them. 

“It would have been me.” The Reaper finally said, “and it would have been a mercy, compared to what has now been unleashed. Without the traveler’s interference, the world would have continued to turn. Now there are monsters in the mortal realms, and I am forced to deal with Things from beyond this world.”

“We can deal with them,” Kiara said, “we have before. You don’t-”

“You are a fool.” The Reaper hissed, “you have no idea the powers at play. You are not even a pawn, in this great game. And you- Calliope Mori, you have forgotten your duty. We are stewards, to this world and the one above. You were told to prepare her for her passing. Instead, you have only damned us further.”

Calli lowered her scythe one more, staring down her teacher. “If you are going to come for her,” she said, “then you will have to end me. Now or later.”

The Reaper eyed her blade, and then shook his head. “You have changed, Calliope Mori. I do not know if it is for the better.” He said, “I will allow you this one reprieve, for respect of what you have done in the world above. There will be no more retries, no more rebirths. You end with your next life.”

There were no theatrics with his exit, merely a turn and a slow walk away from the pair. Calli watched him for a few, long moments, before turning to Kiara. “Come on,” she said, “we need to find the others.”

Calli led her by the hand, silent and brooding over her latest encounter with the Reaper. There was no need to rush, or, it wouldn’t matter much if they did rush. Time worked differently in the underworld, and speeding through the walk from Calli’s room to the plains wouldn’t accomplish much. Yet, Calli found herself all but dragging Kiara along behind her, her feet trying to keep up with her thoughts as they raced from _maybe he’s right, maybe I have doomed us_ to _He can pry Kiara from my dead body._

“Calli,” Kiara pulled her to a stop, turning the reaper to face her, “we need to talk. Please.”

Maybe, somewhere, Calli had also recognized a need to speak on one of the other things the Reaper had said and had hoped to put it off until well after the underworld. “Yeah,” she said, “I… yeah.”

Kiara led her to another one of the pines, an outlier on the fields, almost at their edge. She liked them, Calli knew, a symbol of life on the fields of the dead. 

“Did you know?” Kiara asked, after a long pause. She still hadn’t let go of Calli’s hand, “that I was supposed to die?”

Calli considered not answering her, if only for a moment. “Yes,” she said, her voice small and wavering, “I-I was told to prepare you for that. But Amelia came and then it was just… I thought we were safe.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kiara asked “I know it- it must have been difficult, but… why?”

Because Calli was bad at telling Kiara the important things. There was a long, long, list of things she really should have told Kiara by now, things that made her stomach do nervous loops and her heart… Well, Calli had never been sure what her heart was doing. 

“I was serious, when I said the Reaper would have to go through me.” Calli said, “It’s not just now. I wouldn’t have let it happen then, or ever.”

It was Kiara’s turn to be silent, her only reaction squeezing Calli’s hand in her own. “You can tell me the big stuff too, okay?” she finally said, “Not just about me. The Reaper was right, when he called me a liar. I’ve got no idea what we’re up against- I’ve got no plan, no idea on how to win. I don’t want us going into this regretting what we haven’t said.”

“I will,” Calli said, _once we’re out,_ she told herself, _once we’re not in the land of the dead and the reaper’s threats aren’t hanging over us,_ “I promise.”

Kiara smiled, soft and sweet, “come on then, she said, “let’s go find the dorks, and see if they’re getting into trouble.”

Calli let Kiara lead this time, so close to the edge. Calli’s room was more of a concept than a physical place, and once they were beyond the plains, it was easy enough to find it in the great fog banks that marked the border between the underworld and the unknown. 

“Where do you want to drop us?” Kiara asked, “If you want a day to… you know, not be involved in all of this, we can go to Drumver’s, that’s where they should be heading.”

Calli shook her head, “I’d rather not risk leaving them to find their way.” She said, “and Ina can tell us what we’re fighting. It’d be best if we just dropped on top of them.”

Her room could take her many places. Places she knew, places she needed to be, places she felt in her heart. It was supposed to be a way for her to find her marks, and guide their souls to the afterlife. She’d only ever had one target, and because of Kiara’s undying nature, Calli had spent a lot of time figuring out how to use her room to go to places that we’re related to her mission.  


It was easy enough to reach out into the above world and find her companions. She knew them well enough to recognize their souls. She could even feel Ina’s with them, a great, dark mass of Other clinging to it. 

And then Calli and Kiara were gone, swept from the underworld on a tide of magic, and deposited before their companions with ease. Companions who had their weapons, or in Ina’s case, tentacles drawn.

Calli didn't ask questions, half turning to see the surprised hounds stopped in their tracks. She’d only met them once, when she and Ina had run across the wrong sort of people. She hated them, had hunted their creators for long, long years.

She smiled as she swung her scythe in great arcs. At very least, she knew how to solve this problem. And she was going to enjoy it.


	10. The Battle

Calli’s scythe cut through nothing but air on the first swing. The hounds were fast- but Calli was faster. Her second strike skewered the shadowy beast through its shoulder, the blade shearing through whatever magic held it together, the beast dissipating into shadows and dust.

She didn’t get a moment to collect herself- the lunge had taken her away from her allies, and the hounds were more than eager to pounce, surrounding her, forcing her to cut her way towards safety.  
But, it seemed, safety was coming to her. A great trident impaled itself in the side of one of the hounds, and while that didn’t quite kill it, Amelia, knife in hand, made sure to finish the job. And then there was Ina, who had elected to use her tentacles as brute weapons instead of casting the kind of spells she needed a few moments to prepare for, and Kiara, lashing out with short, controlled bursts of flame, ones Calli had seen melt through steel.

They were unarmored, for the most part, and one of their number completely unarmed, but the five of them together were more than a match for the eleven remaining hounds. Calli had missed battle, in a morbid sort of way. There was nothing quite like fighting with a phoenix at your back, a time traveler on one side, and an Atlantean on the other.  
The hounds pressed them, of course. They were smart enough to hunt, but they’d never been taught to retreat, and their creators were more than willing to throw their constructs away for a chance at killing their targets.

Gura was the only trained fighter amongst them, and it showed. While Calli allowed the hounds to latch on to her arms and rip at them, and Ina used her great tentacles as meat shields, she was among the enemy, rolling and stabbing, unscathed despite taking the greatest risks. 

Amelia- she was a vicious warrior. When the hounds closed on her, she snarled much the same as they did, lashing out with knife and fist. But, she was just a human, and she may very well have had the least training amongst them. She kept to Calli’s side, more than once ducking behind her and allowing the reaper to function as a sort of meat shield.

Ina was unprepared, at best. Given a few moments notice, she could have prepared spells and braced herself for the strain of casting. Without that time, she was reduced to what she could cast on hand. The portal behind her, and the tentacles that came out, were more than enough, though, and she made not quite efficient use of them, but she certainly did use them, picking up the hounds by their back legs and slamming them into the ground.

Kiara was the only person Calli was worried about. The phoenix had grown lax in her defenses, after years of being able to burn lives, and she didn’t even have her shield and sword with her, lost in the observatory. Instead, she channeled her own sort of magic, a more unrefined form than Ina’s. It was fiery and powerful, and offered nothing in the way of protection.

So it was up to Calli to cover both her and Amelia. Her reapers armor was bound to her, and its great spiked shoulder pads represented only a fraction of what she could call forth. In all its glory, it was a suit of plate, stretching from the spikes of the shoulders all the way down to steel plated sabatons. The hounds could barely dent her armor, and while she had no shield, the length of her scythe was more than enough to turn away any hound that was getting too close to her companions.

She set the tempo of the battle. With the hounds swirling around them, trying to tear at their exposed back, Calli forged on ahead, trusting Gura to hold them off while she dealt with what was in front of her. She claimed more than half of the hounds, both with scythe and her crushing blows from her armored hand.

It helped that while Amelia’s knife and Gura’s trident could kill the things, they weren’t very good at it, and Ina’s tentacles and Kiara’s fire… They were good enough to wound the hounds, and to keep them off of the two, but they wouldn’t be killing them. Calli's scythe, on the other hand... it cut through the magic that held the hounds together like a farmer through wheat.

It took Calli a moment to realize the fight had ended. The last of the hounds had faded under her boot, her scythe planted into the ground where it had once been. None of the five had spoken for the entirety of the fight, and for a few moments longer.

“Are we all okay?’ Kiara broke the silence, Glancing between the other four, “no one’s- Gura?”

The Atlantean was clutching at a shoulder, with Amelia at her side, already poking at her, trying to get a better look. “It could be worse,” Gura’s voice was steady and calm, “hurts more than anything.”

“We can handle it,” Amelia said, already cutting a strip of cloth from her shirt, “should probably clean it out the first chance we get.”

Ina was still floating a half foot of the ground, her great tentacles marked with the bites and claws of the hound, but she was otherwise unscathed. Kiara was much the same, though she had earned a shallow cut on her forearm. Calli allowed her armor to fade, save for her pauldrons. She rather liked them, and liked the fact that most recognized them as the sign of a reaper in the overworld. 

“Ah- Calliope,” Ina had finally dispelled her tentacles and joined them on the ground, “it has been a long while.”  
Ina hadn’t changed much, in all the years they’d been apart. There was something wiser about her maybe, centuries of experience compounded onto her, but it was still the same mage she had known.

“Ina,” Calli pulled her in for a short, tight hug, “it’s good to see you again. You know Kiara- at least a little bit. And these are-”

“Amelia and Gura,” Ina said, nodding, “we have traveled together for a fair few now. And, of course, Kiara. I have heard many a story about you.”

“You have?” The phoenix glanced between Calli and Ina, raising an eyebrow, “er, can I ask?”

“No, you cannot.” Calli said swiftly, and by the way Kiara giggled, she knew the phoenix definitely could, and would, know as much as Ina would tell her. “What we do need to know, though, is what you’ve gotten into, Ina.”

“Ah, yes,” Ina said, pausing, “I guess that is of some importance.”

“And how you’ve pissed something like the elder off.” Kiara added, “and how we can do it enough so it leaves our world.”

So Ina told her story, of her research, the fear the Elder had, and her eventual trip to the observatory at Three-Step Peak.

“That’s one thing you never told us.” Amelia said, once Ina had finished talking, “how did you wind up chained to a wall?”

“Ah, that would be my colleagues doing.” Ina siad, “when they realized what I had angered, they were quite terrified. They thought the only way they could save themselves was by leaving as tribute. Though I can’t say if It was influencing them in that time.”

“Right,” Kiara said, “so, those idiots aside, you said you don’t actually know how to use that sort of magic?”

“I am afraid not,” Ina answered, “While it was fairly sound, the application would require tremendous amounts of energy.”

“Energy- like a phoenix could generate?” Kiara asked.

“Ah, possibly.” Ina mused over that for a moment, “It could very well be feasible- my own patron may not be able to generate the kind of power needed, but It can channel that power-”

“I think we’re missing the fact that this is the sort of thing that fries the battery.” Calli broke in, her fists clenched around her scythe, “a lot of folk have tried using external batteries, it never ends well.”

“Yeah, but-”

“But what?” Calli narrowed her eyes, “you don’t get any more retries, Kiara. Right now, I’m the only person who can’t die. No big risks, no sacrifices for any of you.”

There were a few long moments of silence, while the three who hadn’t been in the underworld watched Kiara, and Kiara had a silent staredown with Calli. “Yes, I… the Reaper said I don’t get any more lives.” Kiara finally said, turning to the others, “next time I die-”

“I’ll be seeing how willing he is to fight over you.” Calli said, “but I’d much rather not try it. Ina, are you sure there’s no way to make your idea work?”

“I cannot say for sure,” Ina said, “without my notes, I can’t say anything really. It will be supremely difficult without a silver bullet- though I guess the four of you are more than used to doing that sort of thing.”

“More than you know,” Calli said, “so, where to? Some volcano alcove? A temple in the jungles? What fresh hell do we need to walk through now?”

“What do you take me for, some sort of savage?” Ina asked, “My notes are at my old workshop, in Karl-el-Kesh.”

“Oh thank the gods.” Gura said, “finally, somewhere with half decent food. If I have to eat rabbit and salted pork for much longer, y’all are going to start looking a lot tastier than you should.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have gone back and done a bit of editing, cause reading through all the dashes and ellipses that I had in the first three chapters or so... It was quite a pain. But we've gone and added some words and took some out, and removed a lot of dashes, so it reads a lot better now.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> (did I move this here from the previous chapter because I did a slight bit more editing? Maybe)


	11. The Atlantean

There was a story, amongst Gura’s people. Of great sea-forts, the old holds of their people. Towers of silver and steel, impenetrable and unshakeable. And cities, docks that could host a thousand ships, cities that sprawled across coasts and up rivers. 

Places her people had abandoned, long ago. Seeking the safety of the water, and the great untapped riches below, the Deep folk had left their trading heritage, and with it, many of their masterworks, in the world above.

She hadn’t come to the surface world to fight. Gura had been fascinated by the stories she was told, but she was a good Atlantean. She’d been taught to fear the above world, taught of constant warring and strife, and she believed it. 

No, she had come up looking for the cities she’d heard of, for the towers and citadels that could hold off armies. What she hadn’t expected to find were people living in them. Humans who had built a culture and identity around the cities, until they’d all but forgotten who had built them.

Dealing with them had been a chore, at first. They stared at her, at her shark’s tail and her fangs. Some were afraid of her- the deep folk had faded from memory, until nothing but folk tales remained. Some were curious enough to ask questions, to try to figure out who she was. Many thought her an outcast, or a criminal of some sort.

Some were too curious, and more than once she had to show them the pointy end of her trident in back alleys. Others saw the way she carried herself, or didn’t like that she didn’t cower before them. She taught them what an Atlantean warrior could do soon enough. In time, her name would spread along the coasts, to the point that she was recognized by the clothes she wore and the serpents’ clasp that held her cloak together.

And then, she had arrived at Lorrin, what would become the capital of the Serene Republic. She had known there was unrest, that the soldiers that garrisoned each city weren’t welcome, but none of that could have prepared her for Takanashi Kiara the Lorrin Revolt. 

Gura had heard of the phoenix, but hearing the name was quite different from seeing her in all her glory. A sword set aflame, driving a force twice the size of hers from the city, announcing the liberation of the city to a cheering crowd.

It had been quite impressive, to say the least. And Gura had never been told to fear a phoenix. Joining Kiara’s… calling it an army was a stretch. Gura had served in an army. An obsolete one, that hadn’t fought a battle for longer than she’d been alive, but it was still a professional force. Kiara’s was more of a jumble of farmers and craftsmen, armed with whatever rock or pitchfork they could find. joining it wasn't because she believed in their cause, but because she wanted to see just what this Phoenix was capable of.

Gura spent most of the first two years in cities like Lorrin, doing her best to turn the ragged band of angry Lowlanders into a force to be reckoned with. And then, the war was won, the Lowlands were free, untied under the republic, and Kiara wanted more. A Grand Campaign, to liberate their fellows chafing under monarchs rule.

And Gura finally got her chance to fight, no longer sitting back and trying to apply theory she’d barely learned to real war. It was her first war, on the surface instead of in the seas, against an enemy she’d never trained for. 

It took her a year to earn the name. ‘The Champion of Atlantis,’ they called her. And damn, if she didn’t like it. Free drinks, free food, all the luxury she could ask for. Gura still paid for some of it. Kiara paid her soldiers well, especially after they had been asked to leave their homeland. But getting a few rounds for free, and being able to sit and talk as much or as little as she wanted- that was the life.

And then it was Amelia’s turn to change things for Gura. she entered into Kiara’s inner circle like a cannonball. A blonde, cocky cannonball. Gura had chafed against her for a little while. She couldn’t understand why Kiara put so much stock into some stranger’s words. Until Amelia had warned them of an ambush she had no right to know about, and an army waiting to trap them against a mountain range.

And Gura understood why she was in every high command meeting, why when she said something needed to be done, it needed to be done. But she also saw something else. Amelia- she wasn’t the happiest of people. Most of the time, when she came back from some alternate future, it wasn’t because they’d made some minor mistake. Whatever happened in those timelines, it weighed on her. 

So Gura, she tried to be a friend. She told Amelia stories of the Deeps, of the great ravines in the ocean, filled with glowing creatures and predators that would make even the most fierce surface dweller shudder. She told her about the stories she had been told, of the cruel surface dwellers and their never ending wars.

She told her of the stories that had earned her her title, of the battles she had fought on Kiara’s behalf. Amelia liked to tease her, in the waning years of the grand Campaign. With new territory and soldiers, Gura got to sit back more, let others do the fighting while she, for the first time in nearly seven years, relaxed. Amelia asked if she was getting soft, if she remembered which end of the trident she was supposed to use. 

Gura told her that the next time they got into a fight, she’d prove that she was still just as good as she had been. And that fight had been the hounds, and oh boy, had she been wrong. Missing part of her shoulder wrong.

“Does it hurt?” Amelia was being as tender as she knew how, Gura knew, but her poking and prodding was starting to get on her nerves.

“Amelia,” Gura asked, “did you just ask me if the bloody hole in my shoulder hurts?”

The other was silent for a moment. “Shut up,” she said after, “has it bled through? Can I-”

“Amelia,” This time it was Gura who was gentle, taking Amelia’s hand and moving it from the makeshift bandages, “I’ll be fine. I’ve dealt with a lot worse before.”

“Right, sorry.” Amelia said, “I’m just- not used to seeing you bloody.”

“Is this the part where you say ‘it’s not like I was worried about you?’” Gura asked, trying to lighten the mood, if only a little.

“Shut up and focus on the road.” Amelia was holding back a laugh, Gura knew. But she did as she was asked. The last leg of the journey to Drumvers, a walk through the plains. Flat and boring, to most, though Gura found them fascinating. Her own people would sell just about anything to have the grasses the surface dwellers had. In their undersea realm, seagrass only grew near the sunlight, and the shallows it thrived in had long ago been deemed too dangerous to claim.

On the surface world, though, there were great expanses of just… grass. A few trees, here and there, and tall grasses for as far as the eye could see. The path they walked had been paved with stone ages ago, and the sunbaked cobbles showed it in their cracks and crumbling edges. 

In front of the pair, Kiara led, Calli by her side, and just behind them Ina, engrossed in a book she had pulled from her robes ages ago. Gura had wanted to ask how she managed to pull it from there, with no obvious pockets, but had had a feeling it would have some explanation attached, and Gura barley followed even the most basic of magic. The kinds of things they were dealing with now- it was well above Gura’s willingness to learn. _Let Ina and Kiara figure out how they were going to stab the thing,_ Gura told herself, _And let me do the stabbing._

Drumver’s Hollow came into sight another hour or so into their travels, a cheery town, it reminded Gura of her home. It was built in the Atlantean style, or at least a human version of what had been the Atlantean style, when her people were above. 

And for the first time in many nights, Gura was treated to fresh fish, and beds, and drink, and a full night's sleep, not dictated by the rising and setting of the sun.

Unfortunately, that was not to last. Kar-el-Kesh was an island city, across a sea and up the Great Rush. It would be a journey in itself, but Kiara was determined to waste as little time as possible. Only a day after they arrived in the Hollow, she treated them to the finest food the town had to offer, and told them “we’re leaving tomorrow.”

It didn’t surprise any of them, food was often what Kiara told them to get ready over. That night found Amelia and Gura nursing great mugs of their inns house ale, a stale tasting thing, certainly nothing to write home about. 

“Do you think Ina will figure out how to do her… thing without Kiara?” Gura had needed to ask someone, but the road had never seemed to be the right time.

“I don’t think it’s going to matter.” Amelia said, “If she can, fine, we do some crazy stuff, beat the Elder back to wherever It came from. If she can't, we beat the elder back to where it came from, do some crazy stuff, and snatch Kiara from the underworld. Same thing, just different kinds of crazy.”

“You’re really not phased by any of this?” Gura asked, “the things fighting over us like we’re toys? The Reaper suddenly wanting Kiara? None of it?”

“I’m a time traveler that came from fifteen hundred years in the future to save a phoenix’s dream, and now travel with an Atlantean, a reaper, and the Phoenix. I think we’re well past the point where anything is too weird to be dealt with.”

“I guess you're right.” Gura said, with a half hearted laugh. “I just… I don’t know. Time to go up, I think.”

Amelia watched her for a long moment. “Yeah, I guess it is.” She finally said, standing with her, “longs days ahead, and all that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I aware this is like... 1600 words of lore and doesn't advance the story? Yrs
> 
> Do I care? Also yes
> 
> But even I didn't quite know what Gura's story was supposed to be, so now its this


	12. The Traveler

The path to Roseport was nothing special. Well traveled and well guarded, their few days were swift and painless. Roseport was another story. At one time a grand city, spilling out for miles around the harbor it had been built around, now a hollow ghost of itself. Once a great battlefield in the Revolution, and then again in the Grand Campaign, many of the people who had lived there fled or did not see the end of the wars.

What was left were traders and folk too stubborn or stupid to die, and building after building left to rot in the sea breeze. It’s walls were still manned, though, and its port was often full of ships bound for places beyond, either down the coast to other Lowland ports, across the Narrow Sea to Karl-el-Kesh, or even further beyond, treading the dangerous waters of the Boiling Sea to make for Oreport and its sister cities.

It was the slow season, just before the wheat fields of the continent would be harvested, and just after the great hunting seasons of Eikora and the flow of furs from east to west. Kiara secured them passage on a ferry, days after their arrival. 

Gura didn’t mind, it gave her time to go to the Old City. It was a beautiful place, built to flaunt her people's wealth in the years before. It was further inland than the rest of the city, and most of its inhabitants avoided the ghosts that lurked within.

Gura went alone, leaving Amelia with the brewing angst fest that was Kiara, Calli, and Ina. She would be fine, Gura reasoned, and Gura had earned herself a little time away. Being days of travel from the ocean had left an uncomfortable pit in her stomach, one her compatriots did not share.

The Old City was defined by its aqueducts. Atlanteans did not build further than they could take the sea. In the old days, the streets themselves were just shallow channels for the water, and now the tiles beneath were dried and bleached by years of sun. 

The ‘ghosts’ of the old city were old creatures, sprites of fog and rain Gura’s people had once… Gura didn’t know how they interacted. From what she had scraped together in the surface world, they were respected but not revered, yet every major city was built in a place they inhabited. 

A good luck charm, of sorts, one that kept their cities foggy and damp. They were incorporeal, for the most part, swirls of fog moving with the wind. They watched her, Gura knew, had always done so. She was a curiosity, or something they remembered from times before. She left silver offerings as she went, something Kiara had taught her in their dealings with spirits of a similar nature.  
In the center of the Old City was a Citadel. Ever the centerpiece of the city, it had been built as a sort of museum rather than a true fortress, with great murals of tile and glass adorning its sides, depicting serpents and sea beasts that had once stalked the Deep Folk.

Within it was much the same, with altars to the great spirits, and places where many had once gathered to listen and learn, or decide on the great things they would do. These were the places outsiders were allowed into, where humans and Deep Folk met to write treaties and decide the fates of their people.

There was more to the Citadel, though, hidden above them. The path up was twisting and confusing, and involved a fair bit of climbing. But the second floor- it was worth it. Great windows of colored glass, and sculptures depicting everything from warriors armed with tridents and shields to schools of translucent fish, made of gems and metal. 

They were spelled against raiders and looters, protected from the ravages of man for all the years. The Citadel at Roseport was one of the few she hadn’t visited, They were each unique, chosen from hundreds of others to be immortalized. There was more, too. Floors and floors of sculptures and tapestries, books and great woven masterpieces.

There had been days Gura wept over the Citadels. So much art, lost to her people. Entire symphonies, written for instruments lost to time. Ideas her people had forgotten, years and years ago, waiting to be rediscovered.

It was near the peak of the Citadel that Gura realized she wasn’t the only one taking a private tour. Her jacket was made of some foreign leather, brown and faded with time, and she had a strange hat of the same material, but Gura would recognize her anywhere.

“Amelia?” Gura asked, “I thought you were staying back.”

Amelia stiffened, but didn’t turn. “I- uh,” The voice… it seemed different. Deeper, almost, and hoarse, “I didn’t realize you were going to be here today.”

“Amelia, I told you-” Gura had taken a half step forwards, intent on putting a hand on the traveler's shoulder. That, it seemed, was a mistake, as this Amelia whipped around, drawing something from her side and leveling at Gura. The Atlantean froze, watching Amelia’s hand, and the mean, stunted looking weapon in her hand. 

And then she saw the scar, running down her jaw, and the bags under her eyes, and her eyes, and Gura realized that this wasn’t Amelia. 

“Who are you.” Gura asked, wishing she had called upon her trident.

“Don’t recognize me?” This Amelia asked with a bitter laugh, “don’t recognize your sweetheart after a few years apart?”

“You’re Amelia,” Gura said slowly, “from the future? But-”

“You don’t need to worry about it.” Amelia said, sharp and mean, “little shork brain is probably already working overtime trying to figure out why I’m here.”

Gura took a step back from this Amelia. She was used to her Amelia, and her gentle pokes. This one, though… it was only mean behind the words, only a sneer and a smirk. 

“What the hell happened to you?” Gura asked after a moment.

Amelia snorted and lowered her weapon, holstering it at her side, “you did,” she said, “shark couldn’t take care of herself, everyone else had too. First Kiara, then Ina, then Calli.” She said the names like she was checking off a list, “you couldn’t cut it, and everyone else paid the price.”

“That was a bit harsh.” Amelia said after a long silence, turning back to the sculpture Gura had found her before. It was of a warrior, trident raised and the sea around them bending into a great wave.  
“There was a lot going on. And a lot has happened since.”

“What- what are you doing here.” Gura asked, her voice shaking, “why are you in this time?”

“This is supposed to be you, did you know that?” Amelia asked instead of answering, “a great warrior, meant to lead her people to victory. Destined for greatness. You were our last gamble, when everything else burnt out.”

“What happened?”

“What do you think happened? You threw away three years of planning because you couldn’t leave someone to do their job.” Amelia didn’t bother to hide her contempt, “And everyone else paid the price.”

“What- why-” Gura didn’t get to finish her question.

“I don’t care what questions you have, Gura,” Amelia said her name like it was poison, like it was the cockroach running under her foot, “next time you get the choice between me and winning? Win. Otherwise I’ll never forgive you.”

Amelia didn’t allow her another moment to question, reaching for the only part of her that hadn't changed. A little golden watch, ticking away, and flaring with light as Amelia allowed it to drag her into the flow. 

Gura was left alone in the citadel, staring at the sculpture, blinking away tears. The older Amelia had no reason to lie, no reason to tell Gura anything but the full truth. And Gura knew, somewhere in that head, that she would Choose Amelia over winning. She’d do it again, even knowing what was coming.

She turned away from the warrior in front of her, feeling nothing like it, instead looking to a great tapestry, depicting a drop off, from reefs of coral to a dark abyss below. She took a few deep, steadying breaths, focusing on the contrast, on the art, on the fish and serpents depicted there. She-

“Quite the beauty, isn’t it?” The voice earned a shriek from Gura, as she leapt for fringe, turning to see Ina. “Ah, apologies,” The other side, “I was advised that there may be someone in need of help here. And so, here I am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> blargh.
> 
> That is all


	13. The Sea

“How much of that did you hear?” Was Gura’s first question. It bought her the time to steady herself, molding her face into an impassive mask. It wouldn’t work for Amelia, or Kiara, or really anyone who had known her for more than a few days.

“Ah, well,” Ina waffled for a moment, “I did not mean to hear any of it, but… quite a bit, if we are being honest.”

“Wonderful.” Gura turned to Ina. She was examining one of the sculptures, a great whale cresting through silver water, “What - what is it that you want to say? Why did you get called here?”

“It wasn’t a call, more of a nudge, really,” Ina mused, “though I suppose the distinction isn’t quite so important. She was lying, about the statue being you.”

“And nothing else?” Gura asked, “Just the stupid statue?”

“Considering the difference in how she treated me upon our meetings and you,” Ina grimaced as she spoke, “I would presume she was not lying about anything else.”

“So why about that?” Gura asked, “Why tell me I’m supposed to be some hero?”

“Because instilling a sense of duty is a good way to make people make the choices you want them too.” Ina answered, “that Amelia wants you to sacrifice everything in pursuit of victory, so she gives you a destiny.”

“So- what, I’m supposed to feel like I have a duty now?” Gura asked, “cause I just want to smash the stupid thing now.”

“That Amelia is under the rather foolish delusion that she is the only one who can change history.” Ina said, “she doesn’t yet realize her future is already gone.”

“Gone?”

“Gone. Changed irrevocably. She will be the last relic of it, wandering our world bitter and sad,” Ina paused, “that is… not a particularly fun thought, but it is true. She has forgotten she is not the only input on time. We are all different now, following different paths, fighting different battles.”

"So, what, she's just here?"

"Trying to avert an event that will not happen." Ina said, "she'll figure it out soon enough, or live in denial. I'm not quite sure which. But that was not the last time we will be meeting her, I do think. People like her are rarely content to just watch from the shadows while others write history."

"And if we start doing things she doesn't like?"

"I'd rather like to think she would allow us to make our own choices." Ina said, "but that weapon at her hip- it's called a gun. Future weaponry, I believe our Amelia is about to acquire one. Quite dangerous in her hands. I don't want to think what that Amelia will be willing to do to try to avert her future."

They were silent for another moment, where Ina faked interest in the art and Gura tried to figure out if she was more or less afraid of that Amelia or the eldritch. “I think, Gura said, tilting her head, “I’m going to go do anything else besides think about this. Maybe get a drink, maybe find someone to punch.”

“Is that how you normally deal with things like this?” Ina asked.

“No. But I’ve never had Amelia come back in time to tell me I’m the reason my friends are dead. So there's a first time for everything.”

Ina didn’t try to stop her. Gura was left wandering the old city again, though she didn’t make good on her word. There were few things that sounded less attractive than trying to get drunk off of weak ale alone and bar brawls were never as fun as they sounded. 

Instead, she headed towards the docks and the sea itself. The marketplace that encircled them was the only place in the city where the air felt alive. There were spice racks, and hawkers selling what they could, and sailors cursing their way through their few days off. Gura was recognized by sailors and vendors alike. They nodded to her, or offered her a salute, though she did not return them.   
Food, she decided, was what she needed, and there was no better place for fresh fish than a sea market. The stand she got her fish from was shabby, and it was very clearly dried bass they were selling, and not the deep sea tuna they promised, but Gura couldn’t bring herself to care, not even when the boy at the stand cackled like a fool as she left.

She allowed her feet to carry her down the coast, towards the much older docks that had served the Three Crown’s Navy, before the city had been taken from them. The fighting there had been fierce, and in many places Gura could still see the scars of fire, and armor left behind.

The water there wasn’t calm, but the waves were more like great ripples, never cresting, and smooth enough for Gura to float peacefully, her tail propelling her in slow arcs around the oaken docks. Amelia showed up after a time, though she did not speak, and for a long while the only sound was the creaking of wood and the swish as Gura’s tail broke the water.

The sun had begun its descent behind them, the water aglow with reds and blues, Amelia nothing but a silhouette, watching the water with a rare calm.

“I heard you were moping out here.” Amelia ended the silence. She had sat at the very edge of the docks, her feet dangling just above the water. “Figured I’d leave Calli and Kiara to have some alone time.”

“They probably need it.” Gura said, her tail pushing her towards Amelia, “Ina tell you what happened?”

“Not- not what happened.” Amelia said, “I figured I’d let you do that.” _Or not_ , she didn’t say. “Ina just said you might need someone to talk too, and I figured you’d be down here.”

“Yeah, well,” Gura paused as she tried pulling herself up onto the dock. The wood was soaked and slippery, and it took a hand from Amelia to pull her up. “It’s kinda hard to explain.”

“Hard to explain?” Amelia asked, “Or do you not want to? I mean, that’s fine too.” She added quickly, “but I can’t really do anything without knowing.”

Gura told her, because of course she did. Not all of it, not the bit about sweetheart, but most of it. Gura’s tail had curved around Amelia when Gura had settled next to her, and as Gura told her, of the other Amelia, and the statue, and what Ina had said, she traced little, nervous circles on it.

“That’s… just kinda sad.” Amelia said after a silent moment, “Did you tell her to piss off for me?”

Gura almost cracked a smile at that. “I- I’m just- she’s right, is the problem.” She said instead. “She’s right. I wouldn’t leave you to die, no matter what. The whole world could be at stake and I don’t know if I could leave you behind.”

“I- that’s why I have a watch.” Amelia said, “make sure nothing like that happens. All of us will get out of this one, even if we have to go beat the Elder back to whatever hole It crawled out of.”

The two were silent for a long few moments. “I missed the water.” Gura finally said, “I miss home.”

“Have you ever…” Amelia trailed off, choosing her words carefully, “ever wanted to go back?”

“No.” Gura said, blunt and quick, “it was boring down there. Too many rules, too few places we could go. But I miss it. Do you?”

Gura thought Amelia wasn’t going to answer her, or dodge around the question as she usually did. “Not really.” Amelia finally said. “I mean, I miss my parents, and a few of my friends, but they wouldn’t even recognize me. Better they think I’m across the continent. I wasn’t exactly… I wasn’t doing much with my life.”

“And now you’re preparing to fight death and an eldritch god.” Gura said. “What would your parents think? Hell, what would mine think?”

“They’d probably have me committed.” Amelia said, “for talking about a shark girl and magic. Not a lot of that where I come from.”

“It really is quite awful in the future, isn’t it?” 

“Yeah,” Amelia answered, “yeah it is.”

The two of them watched the water grow dim and dark, leaning against each other as the sun set behind them. They didn’t move until the blackness of night was well and truly set in, walking hand in hand back towards their rooms, whispering to each other, secrets of their homes, stories of their pasts.

Calli did not ask when they returned, only nodded at them and resumed her eternal watch. They ate and drank, and for a few moments, Gura could forget about everything. Forget about the Eldritch mage, about the war, about her home. It was just Amelia’s laugh, and the grand stories they would tell. The happy times. They would not last, but for a moment…

For a moment, Gura was at peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so, Gura's first bit comes to a close. Which means next up its tenchou, and like... actual plot. 
> 
> (also, as of now, Kanata has hit 24 hours of trying to beat sans. Send help.)


	14. The Fool

Kiara was used to acting. She was the spirit of life, and she exemplified that by doing anything and everything. Exploring the southern desserts? Done that. Hiking up mountains? Been there. Teaching herself how to sail? It hadn’t been pleasant, but she’d learned well enough.

Taking charge of the revolution was just another step in that journey, another thing for her to do. And sure, she had done it because it was the capital R Right thing to do, but it was just another self imposed mission, another stop in the long journey that had been her life.

A long journey that might be coming to an end, soon, if she wasn’t careful. Calli had been insistent that she remember that, that she couldn’t take the risks she used too, couldn’t pick all the fights she wanted.

Kiara tried to agree with her, tried to tell herself to calm down, to stop looking for problems to solve or adventures to go on. But they both knew she wouldn’t. Kiara didn’t just stop. Even if it was the last life she’d live, Kiara was going to run through it as she had done all the others.

Which made Roseport so damn boring. There was no one to fight, no disaster waiting to wash over them, just days of waiting for the right boat to come into port. In most cities, Kiara would settle for poking her nose into regional politics. The Lowlands had grown and changed in the time she had left it, and Kiara liked to watch it, needed to watch it, lest it give her another opportunity to do the Right Thing, and give her another notch in her belt of adventures.

But Roseport didn’t remember the phoenix fondly. The occupation had been brutal, The army of the Three Crowns had used the city as their home base, and the siege to take it had left the city devastated. And Kiara’s later campaigns had put it on the battlefront again. The people of Roseport remembered her as the fool who traded lives for land, and nothing more.

Calli had told her to stay in, to stay away from the crowds and watching eyes. _Stay with me,_ Kiara’s brain had filled in, because that's what it had wanted to hear. She would have, too, if it were not for the fact that Kiara was on her last life. There was just.. So much. So much she needed to do, people she needed to see. She couldn’t just stay in, could she?

 _You could,_ Calli had told her, _the world won’t stop if you take some time off._

She was right, of course, but she was also a hypocrite. And Kiara had gone out anyway. _Maybe after all this is done,_ she told herself, _we can rest._ In Drumver’s Hollow, Kiara’s prestige and former rank of High General of the Free Lowlands had gotten them horses and food, and Kiara a new sword. Here, it got her dirty looks and the worst rooms in the tavern. 

It didn’t take her long to realize there really was nothing to do. The local councils were dominated by talk of fishing rights, and many of them barely spoke to Kiara when she tried interceding on their little meetings. 

The merchants had blades much finer than her own, but they gave her no discount, nor were willing to be paid in ‘debt to the state.’ Kiara was left wandering to pass the time. Wishing Calli were with her, and at the same time, thankful she was not. Calli wanted to talk about the big thing. The fight that was brewing, whether or not Kiara wanted to take the lead and start it.

Kiara had been very carefully avoiding talking about Death, or the Reaper, or his decree, or-

A lot of things. A lot of things she really needed to deal with, but were so easy to just… look the other way, and pretend they weren’t going to be a problem. _On the boat,_ Kiara told herself, _we’ll have all the time in the world then._

Kiara told herself a lot of things. She didn’t quite know if that one was true or not.

The streets she walked grew increasingly bare and devoid of life. By the time the sun began to fade, she was alone, save for the occasional merchant, hurrying from one side of the city to another, never sparing her a glance. 

“Hey- ma’am. General.” Kiara turned towards the voice, a shadowed figure in a side alley. He stepped out, clad in the gold and blues of the army, “A moment, if you would. State business.”

Kiara narrowed her eyes, glancing between him and the alley he had emerged from. At one point, it had been an avenue, wide and paved, but rubbish had built up on its sides, narrowing at least it’s entrance to the point that no wagons could pass. 

Kiara knew it was a mistake. The Serene Republic knew how to contact her, and when they did, it would be with all the pomp and ceremony they so loved. This, this was a trap, a trick, a no good lie.  


It was also an adventure. And Kiara was already walking into it. “Aye,” she said, “what is it?”

He led her back into the alley, past the piles of rubbish. He kept one hand on his blade, _force of habit,_ he’d say if Kiara asked. She didn’t, though she very deliberately kept hers off, as to not spoil whatever was coming. 

Kiara was going to have fun with this. No one but herself to risk, no stakes-

The person hiding in the waste was fast. The wire was over her head and against her neck before she could turn, pulled taught. Kiara managed to get a pair of fingers up before it could begin to strangle her in earnest, giving her a moment to realize how much of a fool she was.

“No offence,” the bastard who had lured her said, drawing his sword. _Of course he would. Better to finish me now._ “Just a job, mate. Someone wants you dead, and I’m just getting the gold before someone else does.”

 _Calli’s not going to know,_ Kiara realized, _she’s going to search and search, and I’ll just be-_

He twirled his blade, a final show of finesse before it was put to its deadly purpose. 

_Why couldn’t I have stayed with her? Why did I have to bite? Why- why- why-_

“Good luck on the other side.”

_WHY-_

Kiara’s fear boiled into something else. Wide eyes and gasping mouth became a snarl , great fiery wings erupting from her back. They were of fire, not solid, but hotter than even the greatest of furnaces, shaped into great falcon’s wings.

She could hear the other shriek as she finally could breath, the garrote abandoned in a desperate flight from her wings. The man in front of her was still lunging, but it meant nothing. Kiara twisted and caught him by the wrist and blade, the later cutting into her hand for a moment before her own heat melted the blade in two. 

She threw him back, allowing him a half moment to cry out, clutching his burnt wrist. She didn't give him much else, striding towards him, one fist clenched and consumed in flames, the other flexing, waiting for it's chance to burn. “Who paid you,” she demanded, “who was it.”

“I’m not-”

“I burned through your sword before it could cut me.” Kiara was close enough that his clothes were starting to steam, her wings curling upwards, reaching to the second floors of the buildings around them. “Do you want to imagine what I can do to you?”

“The- the governor of Karl-el-Kesh. He put a bounty on you, wants you dead before you get to the city.” He said quickly. “Please, just let me go.”

Kiara almost didn’t. With her wings curling up against the walls behind her, her blood pumping, she very nearly ended him. “Next time someone comes for me.” She told him, “they’ll wish they got away with a scarred wrist. Tell anyone who’s taking up the offer.”

She didn’t bother waiting for an answer, turning from him and stepping over his companion- they might have survived, the fire was out at least. They’d learned the hard way that phoenix’s were a bit harder to kill than their average mark. Out of the alley, Kiara allowed her wings to burn out, nothing more than wisps of smoke left in their wake. 

And her mind retreated into those few moments of blind fear. Kiara forced herself to keep walking, to shove whatever that had been to the back of her mind. She needed- 

She needed to not be afraid, to be safe, to curl up in a little warm ball and pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist for a while. 

She needed to tell Calli, _you’re right, I am stupid, please forgive me._ Or, something of the sort. Anything, anything to make up for what he had almost done. Kiara felt a trickle, and wiped at her neck, her hand coming away with little smears of blood. She needed to get back to Calli.


	15. The Bond

Calli’s anger was a quiet thing. It seethed below the surface of an impassive face. It had taken Kiara many years to see it, to learn to watch the ways her eyes moved and the stiffness of her back. But it had been far, far longer than that since Calli’s anger had been directed at her. She’d been annoyed by the phoenix, sure, but the two of them… they didn’t get angry at each other. 

Kiara wanted to say something, try to break the silence that had settled over them. They were alone, in the room they shared. Kiara was laid out on her bed, staring up to the planked ceiling, and had been for minutes on end. The sun shone cheerily through a window, something neither of the room’s two occupants felt.

“Calli, I didn’t mean for it to happen,” Kiara finally said, “I just-”

“Kiara, just stop,” Calli cut her off. “Just- it doesn’t matter if you didn’t mean for it. I’m fine following you on your crusades because you believe in something. What you did, that was just a shot of adrenaline for you. You just wanted a rush.”

“That’s not…” That was true. “I didn’t-”

“Do you have any idea what that would have done to us?” Calli sat up, her eyes hard and steely, boring holes into Kiara, “This whole team you’ve put together would just fall apart. Years of fighting wasted because you can’t control yourself. Amelia and Gura are here because of you. Can you imagine what that’d do to them? Can you imagine what it’d do to me?” She turned from Kiara as she finished, her jaw clenching as she tried to regain control of her voice.

“Can you tell me you wouldn’t do it again?” Calli asked, turning back to Kiara, “can you look me in the eyes and say that was the last stupid risk you take?”

“Yes,” Kiara said, too quickly, “I won't- I promise I won’t do that again.”

For a moment, all Calli did was watch her, as if her words and her eyes were some puzzle to be solved. And for a moment, Kiara thought she’d found a way to fix what she’d done.

“I don’t know if I believe you.” And then Calli shot her in the heart. “I need to go out. I’d rather not be followed.”

The Reaper didn’t wait for a response, striding to the door, not even a glance backwards as she left. Kiara didn’t move, didn’t even look away from the spot where there once had been a Calli, where there should now have been a Calli, but where nothing but the echoes of what she had said remained.

Kiara did the sensible thing, all but collapsing back into her bed and staring into the ceiling, wishing she had Amelia’s power to go back in time and slap herself. For a second, she considered asking Amelia to do just that. But she’d gotten lucky this time. Not learning this lesson might cost her her life in a different future.

 _Learning it might have cost Calli,_ some traitorous part of her head whispered. Kiara clamped down on that, pressing her eyes closed and purging even the beginning of that thought from her. After everything, everything they’d done, Kiara refused to believe anything could drive them apart. They were bonded, in blood and fire, and nothing could break that. It was a ridiculous idea, like asking if the sky was yellow. She and Calli- They were together, high tide came and went, the sun set in the west.

Sleep came slowly, despite Kiara’s wish to just… escape for a moment, to forget the whole day, to pretend Calli was across from her, watching as she slept, until she too, wished to cross over into the dream world.

When sleep did come, it came with not so much a dream as a memory, of the first time the two met.

It wasn’t the first time they’d seen each other. The first few hundred years of their lives the other had been a constant thorn in the other’s side. Kiara’s refusal to die, and the little Reaper’s dark presence made the two enemies, or rivals.

No, it took another three hundred years, time Calli had spent traveling and developing an identity of their own, before they met again. They met on a cliff overlooking a grand expanse of lakes and farms, far to the south of the Lowlands. This was many, many years before Kiara would even begin to call the Lowlands home. 

“I didn’t expect to see you any time soon.” Calli had been the first up, and Kiara’s voice had nearly startled her back into the underworld. 

“I- I didn’t realize you were here.” Calli responded, turning from the view to the phoenix. They’d both matured in the years they’d been apart. While the twin spirits didn’t age, they did learn, and change with the years. “You look… different. Better, less angry.”

“Yeah,” Kiara laughed at that, “last time you would have seen me was in my angst years. What have you been up to, little reaper?”

“I-” Calli paused, then frowned. “Er, Calliope Mori.” She said, “that’s my name. Or Calli. Formalities aren’t terribly important to the dead.”

“Calliope Mori, eh?” Kiara tested the name, “as good as any name. What are you doing, way out here?”

“I wanted to see more.” Calli said, “I’ve been- many places. But I’ve missed out on a lot of time. I presume you’ve already seen most of the things in the world?”

“As if,” Kiara said, “I’ve been here four times, and every single time, the views are a bit different. Every single time.”

Calli was silent for a moment, gazing out over the lakes, “What are you doing now?” She asked, “besides talking to me, I mean.” 

“Just wandering.” Kiara answered her, turning from the view, “I’ve got a camp set up a little walk down. Why don’t you stick with me for a little bit, I can show you what I’ve seen, tell you what’s changed.”

Kiara really hadn’t known why she made that offer. Even the Kiara who was dreaming never knew why. As the dream devolved into lights and noise, disjointed and harsh, Kiara woke, her body curled into a cold little ball, the chill night air seeping through the ceiling and between the cracks in the walls.

The night didn’t like her, as sleep once again eluded her. And then it entirely escaped her as the room’s door opened, and a quiet shadow slunk into the room. She paused at Kiara’s side, both frozen for a moment. Kiara didn’t know if she wanted to be left, if she should say anything, but Calli…

Calli reached down to Kiara’s feet, pulling the blanket that had been abandoned by them up and over the motionless phoenix, tucking it gently around her shoulders, as if afraid of waking Kiara. Calli retreated to her own bed, and for a long few moments, they were both still. Finally, Kiara allowed herself to turn, rolling onto her other side, to meet the wide open eyes of the reaper.

Kiara had known, somewhere, that that was the case. Reapers didn’t need to sleep, though they could, and she’d felt eyes watching her, waiting for something to happen. Neither of them spoke for a long few moments, their faces lit only by moonlight.

Kiara watched Calli, and Calli watched Kira. They didn’t speak, but Kiara… she hoped that it meant that Calli believed her. That this would work out. That hope- It was enough to allow Kiara rest, with Calli watching over her. Enough to get her to the next day, and whatever else it would bring. 

It was enough.


	16. The Morning

Kiara hadn’t intended to build up her team. At the start, she’d just wanted it to be her and Calli, two immortals with nothing to lose. But, as she’d begun to realize, people like Amelia, people like Ina, they tended to gravitate towards her. She’d been many things in her life, a revolutionary, a wanderer, a soldier, and she’d accepted each in stride. 

Up until a year or so ago, she’d always known what she was. Always knew when it changed, when she needed to be something else. And then she had a team, capable of great and terrible things, and no direction to point them in. No great evil, no monsters, nothing. They were out there, she knew. She’d listened to enough of Amelia’s stories to know. But she couldn’t find them, couldn’t hunt them down. 

Ina’s call had given them what they were lacing, a great sign, pointing them in the right direction. Kiara had followed, knew she had to keep following, lest she once again lose sight of what she had to do. 

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it.” The waves, silver and blue, rolling in from the great unknown, the docks bobbing and creaking. The people and ships, boarding and departing and calling out five crowns for a piece, Kiara knew this place. In her bones and blood, she had been here a thousand times before, in a thousand different places, watching the sea, watching the people.

“Yeah.” The fog had cleared for the morning, and Kiara had been told Calli was out at the sea. She stood against a rotting railing, allowing the sea breeze to blow her hair back, fluttering in the oh so gentle wind. “It really is.”

Kiara settled not quite next to her, but close enough. Close enough for Calli to reach out, if she wanted to. “Do you remember Star Sail City?” She asked, “How the sky reflected off the bay?”  


“And the boats that would come and go?” Calli added, “sails and pontoons and oars. A thousand different kinds.”

They were silent for another long moment. “I miss the old days, sometimes.” Calli said, “when there weren’t any stakes. We could go out for twenty years and no one would notice. Now you can’t leave this place for twenty minutes without half the world collapsing and the other half calling you back to fix it.”

“I do too.” Kiara said, “but I-”

“You have a duty, I know.” Calli said, “doesn’t mean I have to like it.” And then, after a pause, “you’re not going anywhere without one of us now, I hope you know that. I’m going to glue myself to your back if that’s what it takes.”

“Don’t tempt me with a good time.” Kiara said, half smiling, hoping Calli would do the same. When she didn’t, Kiara returned to the sea, frowning. “Look, I’m sorry. And I meant it, when I said no more stupid risks. I won’t pull something like that again.”

“I know.” Calli said, “Just… I don’t know where I am, right now. I’m supposed to be your reaper, but I’m protecting you from The Reaper. Reapers are supposed to keep to their duties, but I haven’t done anything for the underworld in forever.”

“I-” Kiara didn’t know how it felt. “I wish I could help.” She finally said, “Is there a way I can help?”  


“Not-” Calli shook her head, “I’m not going to ask you to stop trying to be the hero. Just… take me with you. I can’t keep you safe if I’m not with you.” She turned, pulling Kiara closer to her, “promise that, at least. That you’ll take me with you, wherever you go.” 

“I promise.”

They stood like that for a long few moments, staring into the other, waiting for something, anything to happen. Nearly a minute passed before the two put a few steps of distance between each other, flushed and now unable to meet the other’s gaze. 

They returned their eyes to the sea, and the two allowed the morning to slip away from them. The afternoon came with a very different conversation.

“So, this guy, Governor of Karl-el-Kesh,” Amelia said, “he wants you dead?”

“It seems so.” Kiara had gathered the five of them in her room, telling the story of her near fatal mistake and everything else she’d learned. “Which means the city won’t be as safe as I thought. We’ll have to be on our guard.”

“And we’re sailing over only the stormiest bit of sea in the whole world too.” Ina added, “It seems the gods and those beyond conspire against us.”

“Sounds about right.” Amelia said, “no fun if you’re winning all the time.”

“The point is,” Kiara said, “that we’re going to need every bit of brain power we have. Ina-”

“I’ll be preparing illusions and transformations,” the mage said, “as per your request.”

“Right, between her and our blades, we should be able to get her research and get out. Worst comes to worst- we’ll hope over the walls at night.”

“Right, I’m sure that’s the worst that’ll happen.” Amelia said, and with that, the five broke into smaller groups, Ina, Gura, and Calli headed for downstairs, where they could eat and drink, and Amelia, leaning on Kiara’s door frame, watching them go. 

“If I could tell you how you died now,” she said, “would you want me too?”

Kiara narrowed her eyes at the traveler, “what’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m planning on making a trip forwards,” Amelia said, “to get some stuff, maybe swing by my old place, just for the nostalgia. I can dig through legends to see if they’ve changed any. Should have, considering how much we’ve done. Might be able to tell you what our next major fight is.”

“Are you coming back?” 

“Yeah.”

“Then it doesn’t matter.” Kiara said, turning her attention to her sword, “that’s only the future you don’t return too. You rewrite it every time you come back.”

“That is… one way to think of it. I’m going to bounce, if you don’t have anything else. I’ll meet you before the boat gets in tomorrow.”

“You’d better.” Kiara replied, glancing up, watching her flick the golden watch to life, “the tides won’t wait for anyone, not even you.”

Amelia smirked, “don’t you worry,” she said, “I’ll be right on time.” And with that, she was gone. And Kiara was alone once more. Her stomach took that moment to remind her that she’d forsaken eating for Calli, and while she would make that decision again in a heartbeat, she could now choose food and Calli.

Down below, the other three had separated themselves out. Ina was huddled in a back corner, Gura not far off from her, ordering steak and fish and all manner of meats. Calli, however, had taken up a post just to the left of the door, and she already had a pair of meals laid out before her. 

“I thought you might be coming down,” she said, “figured you’d be hungry, too.”

Hungry was a bit of an understatement, but she restrained herself long enough to thank Calli before she dug in. 

“So- I was thinking.” Calli said, glancing between Kiara and the rest of the inn’s patrons, “I- er, well, there’s this celebration of high tide. Do you want to- you know, go see it? Together?”

Kiara paused for just a moment. “Calli- are you asking me out?”

“What? Oi, no, _listen_ -”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meh. Idk, I didn't really enjoy this. Couldn't figure out what to write, restarted it like five times, and now it's... whatever this is.
> 
> I kinda just wanted to write what comes next, so if nothing else, now I'm fee to do that.
> 
> Cheers


	17. The Dragon

The Flow welcomed Amelia, twisting and turning around her, guiding her into the future. She wondered if it really did remember her, if the fact that it didn’t present exits anywhere before fifty years ahead was a limitation, or a memory of her habits.

She didn’t jump short distances ahead- or, she didn’t anymore. Her past self, the one that lived in the future, she did. Before she used it to become a time traveling warrior, the golden watch was used to skip waiting times, or entire days that she deemed boring. She’d found herself skipping entire hours just so she could sleep again.

Amelia knew her own branch by heart, the sharp offshoot of the main timestream. It hadn’t always been like that, but the longer Amelia had spent in the past, the more she noticed it drifting from the main time flow. She’d been ecstatic at first. Finally, a sign she was doing the right thing. The whole tree of time was shifting, flexing to a new path. 

But her future was still there, still sucking up more than half of the possible outcomes into its dying limbs. Amelia hadn’t been back in almost three years, not since Gura had asked her what her own people were doing in the future.

Amelia didn’t stop at her own time. She wanted something more powerful than what firearms they could offer. Instead, she traveled nearly another hundred years into the future. Twenty years past the advent of the laser pistol. A hundred and forty since the end of the Wars.

Sariel had been Amelia’s home city, and a century into the future, it was much the same. The outskirts were all but abandoned, left to rot in the rain, the great highways that had once carried food and technology into the city lay crumbling, abandoned cars littering the sides of the roads.

People had stopped caring a long time ago, well before even Amelia’s time. The Wars had reduced the world’s population by more than half, and the weapons unleashed had left many of the survivors unable to bear children. The whole world knew they were dying a slow, painful death. The pretense of hanging on for a miracle had been abandoned during Amelia’s childhood. 

Still, there were many folk who could profit off of the situation. Bandits, robbers, murderers, arms dealers. Amelia was going for the last. She followed the highway into the city, keeping her eyes open for any sign of life. She was greeted with… nothing. In her time, the inner city at least had remained, while not quite lively, populated. She saw not a single soul on her way into Sariel, and the roads that had once been at least patched and maintained had crumbled and withered. 

She did however, see the signs of the gangs that often took over dying cities. Signs proclaiming one group's territory or another, bombed out cars and gunfire riddled walls, but no one around. No one to harass her, or take a potshot at her. 

That was probably why the store was such a shock. A hole in the wall building, next to a dozen other abandoned storefronts, with a great neon sign. _Yakuza Arms_ it read, in great orange letters.  


Amelia glanced between the other, abandoned storefronts, and the great glowing welcome before her, and shrugged. _There are always cockroaches,_ she thought, _just one last bug that hasn’t been stomped._

The door opened with a cheerful jingle, and Amelia stepped inside. The interior made Amelia pause, narrowing her eyes at the weapons before her. Because there weren’t just laser pistols and great drum rifles. No, one entire wall was dedicated to swords she recognized, old weapons from the Grand Campaign, and another had great sets of armor next to bullet proof vests and riot shields.  


“Oi oi oi!” Amelia turned towards the voice. It was deep, and loud, and demanded attention. “How can I help you?”

The woman… was just a giant. Everything about her was massive, and she leaned against her own counter with a cocky smirk.

“I- I’m looking for something more modern.” Amelia said, after shaking her head and looking away from the more antique items. “Preferably something small.”

“Ah,” The woman paused, tilting her head, “can I have a name?”

Amelia almost gave her standard fake, “Amelia Watson,” she said instead. It wasn’t like there was anyone around to enforce law any more, and if they took offence to it, she could just retry.

“Oh,” there was a flash of recognition, before the other shook her head, “Watson, hmm? Well, what kind of weapon are you looking for?”

“I don’t-”

“Well, you want something small.” The woman didn’t let Amelia finish. “Light, easily hidden, yes?”

“Yeah,” Amelia said, “I’d rather like it to be durable, too. Considering everything.”

“You don’t- correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t strike me as a killer.” She said, examining Amelia. “There are plenty of weapons that could fit that description, but you look like you want something more versatile.”

“I…” Amelia had to pause to think. What was she getting this gun for? To kill an eldritch beast, or to get everyone else through the times ahead, “you’re right. Something more useful, if you have it.”

“I do, in fact.” She turned, reaching for a box on a high shelf behind her. She placed it between them and opened the box. Inside was a pristine revolver, its exterior made of cold steel and rubber.  


“The S-30. Six rotating energy cells to distribute the heat evenly, and an adjustable fire gauge, allowing you to choose just how bad you want to make someone’s day. It cauterizes the wounds it makes, so unless you’re trying to kill someone, it’ll just put them on their ass.”

She demonstrated the turning and the fire gauge as she spoke, “it’s a weapon for folk who need more than just bodies. For folk who find things.”

“It… have we met?” Amelia asked. That comment had been a little too close to correct for Amelia’s taste. 

The woman laughed at that, “no, no, not yet.” She said, “so, the gun?”

“It’s… it’s nice.” Amelia said, taking it in her hands. “How much for it?”

“Ah, i think I’ll just put it on your tab.” The woman said, “I’ll collect later.”

“I- I don’t think I’ll be coming back here.” Amelia said, after a pause, “ever. I've got things to do in other places.”

“I should hope you're not coming back to this forsaken city.” The woman said, “Don’t worry yourself about it. I’ll collect eventually.”

“Are you-”

“Get the fuck out of my store before I change my mind.” The change was sharp, the woman rolling her eyes and shooing Amelia away, shoving a belt holster as she went, “go, get out. Shoo, go do your job.”

“Right- thank you.” Amelia said, drifting towards the door, “just- thank you.”

“Get out you little-”

Amelia was gone before she could finish, already fitting the belt around pants that had not been made with them in mind. Eventually, though, she settled herself, and practiced drawing and holstering her weapon. Once she was satisfied with that, she took shots at car mirrors and other small targets. In her own time, she’d used a similar weapon, though it had kicked back much worse than her new one. 

She could feel eyes on her, though she could never guess from where. Surrounded by buildings and dark alleys, there could be any number of folk watching her. She hadn’t strayed from the little shopping center that she had acquitted her new weapon at, and one last glance back told her where at least one set of eyes had come from. Two, actually, as she could see the outline of a second, much smaller figure next to the giant that was the owner of _Yakuza Arms_. Amelia waved to them as she flicked her watch to life, deciding she’d had enough of the city.

She had one last place to visit, home sweet home.


	18. The Detective

Amelia’s next jump was only of ninety-six years, to 2764. She would have been twenty three, if she hadn’t stumbled upon the golden watch. Sariel was much the same as she had left it, especially on the outskirts. Most folk had retreated to the relative safety of the inner streets, where what little enforcement of the law could be found. Still, the highways were well driven, and even some of the suburbs, especially the gated communities were still alive. 

Walking into the city took longer, as she was no longer able to use the highways. Instead, she followed the footpaths and side streets towards the Outer Cordon, the furthermost place where police bothered to go. This time there was much to be seen. Posters cheerfully declaring fertility clinics bringing on a second baby boom, junkies and their dealers huddled together, and, here and there, folk just walking. 

Amelia huddled into her cloak as she walked, not wanting to be noticed, nor talked too. It was an old strategy, one her mother had taught her. Things like public transportation had eroded almost a decade before, and gas was hard to come by, and expensive if one could, so most people walked to wherever they were going, There were plenty of people who sought to prey on that, ranging from simple thieves to traffickers and their kind.

Amelia only met the first batch on her way in, a pair of kids, bone thin and angry. They should have been in school, if the world had been working properly. Instead, they stepped out of an alley, knives drawn. 

“Hey,” One of them said, “money, now. Give it up, and you get to go free.”

Amelia didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink at the blades. It had been a long time since something like that scared her, and even before she’d begun her journey through time, she’d carried more than enough firepower to deal with punks like those two.

“Listen,” She brushed her cloak aside, resting a hand on her revolver, “if you two think you can knife me before I put the both of you down, be my guest. Otherwise, scurry back into whatever hole you crawled out of and pick a better target.”

Their eyes widened when they saw the gun, and they were quick to follow her commands, dashing back into the alley and out of sight. 

Amelia didn’t take her hand off of her revolver until she was well past them, into the Outer Cordon itself. She owned an apartment there, or had. From what she could gather, she’d arrived a few months after her first departure. Her rent hadn’t been paid up, and what little she had was probably sold off or dumped.

Her office, though…

Buis Hall was a run down sort of building, once a grand, glass filled thing, housing some agricultural firm. Now, most of the windows had been broken out, either for sharp bits of glass to cut and tear, or by disrepair and negligence.

When the firm had gone bankrupt, its assets should have been sold. But with the lack of people, and money, it had been left vacant and bare. And then all sorts of folk had started moving in. More illicit businesses, people with connections to the other side of the law. Over time, more legal folk began to move in, claiming little spaces for whatever business they needed, and the less legal folk were either kicked out or dragged out.

Amelia’s room was near the back. It had once been their electrical room, bare and steely, with little boxes that had once housed the fragile connections between the building and the city's power grid.  


It was a horrible place to work. In the summers it baked, and oftentimes Amelia forced herself to move to her own apartment, for fear of heatstroke. In the winter, and the rain storms that come, it became cold and damp, and she had to make sure to run a dehumidifier, lest her files molded. 

Walking into the building was something of a trip. She had always known the businesses there tended to rotate fairly frequently, between more seasonal ventures and the lack of patrons many faced. But there always seemed to be more to fill them. Walking in a few months out, and there were no familiar faces. No Jolly cook, no mechanic with a black heart, none of the people she’d associated with the place. She didn’t ask around for them, instead making her way through the main hall, left, right, and then one final left, coming to her door. 

“Private Eye: Watson” the sign read. She’d made it herself, out of old LED plates and a bit of wire. Made people trust her more, let them know at least her last name before they walked in.  


Contrary to the rest of the building, inside, nothing had changed. Her faux leather chair still sat crooked and turned from the last time she had left her desk, and there were still a half dozen case files on her desk. 

Most of them were missing people’s cases. Plenty of folk disappeared. Most were victims in one way or another, easily traceable from their day to day lives to their run in with the wrong kind of criminal. 

She’d made a fair bit of cash doing that sort of work. Once word got around that she knew how to search, and who to ask, and that she got results, the flow of money and barter to get her help only stopped when she took days off. 

Amelia walked to her desk, sitting in her chair, wincing as it squeaked and tilted under her weight. She had needed a new chair months ago, but she’d never gotten around to it, and, in the end, had never needed too.

On top of her desk was a thick stack of papers, all sheathed between a flimsy little folder marked ‘Cult?”

Her greatest failure. Amelia hadn’t known what she’d been getting into at first, tracking down Jarv. He’d seemed a simple man, if you didn’t look too deep into it. But Amelia’s job was to look for the unfortunate truths of people’s lives, and what she’d found…

Amelia had never found him. Never been able to conclusively link him to any of the major cults, and there were more than a few. Religious nuts, doomsday believers, all sorts. Jarv had never partaken in any of that. But there had been something, eating up entire days of his time, something he refused to tell his family, or his wife.

Amelia thought it was an affair, until the second came in. Same sort of thing. Perfectly normal, except for those odd hours they’d disappear. Then poof, gone. Then another, and another. That file had thirty six names, and she knew there were more. 

She’d been so close. So damn close to an answer before the lead she’d been following went the same way. Her name was last on the list, another missing person, never to be found.  


She allowed herself to open the file, to look through the names and her notes, her wild speculation. The few, loose pages of an ancient manuscript her lead had given her, the glyphs that she couldn’t read. She folded those up and pocketed them, impulse and intuition combining for a moment, before she closed the file once more. She hadn’t come to reminisce, or find the answer to that particular question. 

Instead, she stood once more, turning to the coat hook in the far corner, and the brown leather duster that thing there. It was an old, beaten thing, dusty and left to wither. It had also been her trademark, along with the cap that had sat atop it. Easy to recognize, and large enough for her to hide all manner of things beneath.

Putting it on after all the years didn’t feel like a homecoming. It was more like how Kiara changed when she donned her armor. Her back straightened, her eyes hardened. It wasn’t a suit of armor, but it felt like one. Like returning to it meant she could fight the things that lurked around her. 

She would have mused more- she had the time for it, after all- but something else interrupted her. A companion of hers, in the later months of her work, ever present and looming in the dark.  


The reaper was faceless, sunken into a black cloak, only a single, skeletal hand gripping a scythe to prove it was anything more than a cloak flying through the air.

“I thought you might turn up.” Amelia said. She didn’t expect a response. In the year or so of it stalking her, it had never spoken, never even given a sign it knew she existed. “Do I know you? Can you answer me that?”

It didn’t, of course. “Figured as much.” Amelia said, watching the reaper. IF she was right, which was a pretty big if, this reaper… it had endured more than loss. It had spent centuries trying to pick up broken pieces, only to have everything blow back into its face. “I- uh, I want to thank you. For that time with the train. And… well, all the times you saved my ass. I don’t know if I’ll be coming back here. Ever.”

Nothing.

“I hope… I hope that means you don’t have to go through all that. I'm going to try to make sure everything works out- make sure we all make it out.” Amelia said. “If there’s anything you can say, or want to say, now’d be the time.”

“Alright, I guess.” Amelia shook her head, “I- uh, I’m going to be going, now. Wish me luck.”

Her new sleeves ended just before the golden watch, and Amelia stole one last glance to the reaper before she fell back into the Flow. As she did so, in that last moment, she could swear to hear the reaper whisper, in an almost familiar voice, “good luck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I kinda had these two bits planned out together, and I wanted to get it down before the usual day wait, so... here ya go
> 
> Also, The reaper mentioned here is a concept I like, but probably wont get explored further just because I don't think Amelia is coming back to that time.
> 
> That's pretty much it


	19. The Return

Amelia liked to arrive with flair. Time travel wasn’t a flashy thing, and more often than not she could pass her arrivals or returns off as simple stumbles or wanderings, if she so desired. And newly armed and equipped, she wanted to show off.

She landed on the docks with a solid thud, dropping into a kneeling position, one hand pushing her jacket back to rest on her revolver, the other at her knives hilt, her face obscured by hair and the wide brim of her cap. 

She could feel eyes on her, felt the gentle sway of the docks, and straightened herself, sporting a crooked smile and glancing between the five laid out before her. She disregarded the craggily old captain- he probably could see clearly enough to be impressed, and looked to her companions. Calli had an eyebrow raised and her arms crossed, Kiara rolled her eyes and turned back to the captain. Two strikes there. Ina had her face buried in a book- doesn’t count, and Gura- Gura looked like she’d been hit by a truck.

Amelia did a quick inventory. No blood, no missing limbs, she thought she looked fine (though it had been a while since she’d looked in a mirror) so why the hell was Gura looking at her like that?

“Amelia, you’re here,” Ina looked up from her book, with a half smirk that told Amelia she had heard her entrance, and very deliberately kept her eyes down. “Welcome. I presume the future was pleasant as always?”

“You know it,” Amelia said, glancing between her and Gura, “Gura, you-”

“I’m fine.” Gura said, her voice too high and her words too fast to be believed. “Just- new outfit, huh? That what you used to wear?”

“Yeah- figured I should bring it with me.” Amelia’s attention was quickly dragged to the very animated conversation between Kiara and who she presumed was the captain of the ship tied to their little strip of the docks. It was a small thing, with barely enough room for a cabin and a sail, its wheel placed atop the Boxy rear of the ship. 

“No fucking way!” The captain shouted, shaking his head. “Not for another week. More, even. If you want to try it, it’s your grave. And your money for the ship.”

He stormed past Amelia, nearly shoving her into the water in his haste to leave. “So-” Amelia said, “what was that all about?”

“He was supposed to be our ride out.” Kiara answered, now pacing, “but he thinks there’s going to be a storm coming. I promised him payment for damages, or a new ship… and, well, we have a ship.”

“But no captain.” Amelia said, “right. Do we know how to sail, then? I presume you want to run through the storm?”

“We need to.” Calli said, “got word after you left. The bounty on Kiara’s head is four thousand crowns.”

Amelia whistled, “goddamn, Kiara, you didn’t tell me you were worth that much. Once we get this whole death thing sorted, we could make a fortune off of you.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not the plan.” Kiara rolled her eyes at Amelia, “we’re going to get across the Narrow Sea now, get to Karl-el-Kesh, and show that idiot what happens when you poke a phoenix.”

“One of them is going to get lucky, one of these days.” Calli said, “either getting Kiara, or one of you two. We all have bounties, though yours are substantially less.”  


“How much less?”

“Gura is worth two hundred, four if taken alive.” Calli answered, and Amelia could see Gura shudder at the thought of the second. “You’re two hundred, and no one wants you alive.”

“Are you telling me that I’m worth one twentieth of a Kiara?” Amelia asked, indignant, “whoever’s setting their bounties needs to get their priorities straight. I’m clearly worth at least two Kiaras. Maybe even three, on a good day.”

Gura’s smile was small, but it was there, and even Calli chuckled a little at that, “regardless, we’ve made the decision to get across the sea starting today, preferably finishing tomorrow.” Calli said, 

“Gura doesn’t think there’ll be a storm-”

“Which doesn’t mean much considering she lived under the sea, not on it.” Ina interjected, but Calli continued.

“- so we’re going. If there’s a problem, we’ll deal with it. If it gets too bad, Amelia, I trust you will deal with it.” They all paused for a moment, staring at Amelia, waiting for something to happen.

“Guys, this is my first time through too, I’ll tell you if something goes wrong once I know.” Amelia waved them off as she spoke, “come on, are we going or what?”

There were only two sailors between the five. Kiara, who had learned to sail at some point during her existence, and Gura, who had made a point to learn everything she could about boats after she’d been mocked relentlessly for not knowing anything about them despite the fact that, as Ina had said, she lived under the sea, not on it. 

Amelia took to it well, and Ina preoccupied herself with filling the sail with wind, pushing them onward during calm winds. Calli had taken one look over the edge, an hour or so into their journey, and retreated into the cabin. Fortunately, it was a small ship, and a crew of two could manage it, much less a crew of two plus whatever Ina and Amelia counted as.

As day faded into night, and little bits of cloud gathered on the horizon, Amelia finally got a moment alone with Gura, standing their watch at the front of the ship, listening to the waves break on their hull, and the rustling of the rigging in the wind. 

“So, what happened?” Amelia asked her, “what’d I do?”

Gura was quiet for a long moment. “N-nothing, she said, entirely unconvincing, “nothing at all.”

“C’mon, Gura-” Amelia took a half step towards her, to which Gura flinched away, eyes wide. “Okay- okay, not doing that.” Amelia said quickly, “Gura, whatever it is, I can hear it. Did I get a new zit? Is one of my eyes crooked?”

“You’re wearing the same jacket as… the other Amelia.” Gura said, almost too quiet to be heard.

Whatever other attempt at humor she had died on Amelia’s lips. “Oh,” she said, quietly, “I’m- into the ocean with it then.”

“Wait! Please don’t.” Gura said, “I don’t want you to throw it in because of me.”

“Really?” Amelia asked, pausing in her hasty attempt to take the jacket off, “Cause- I don’t really want to wear anything she is, either.”

“No, I don’t want you to just throw it away.” Gura said, “Not for me. It’s your old friend, right? The same jacket you told me about all those times, saving your life and all that?”

“Yeah,” Amelia said, settling the leather back onto her shoulders, “yeah, this old guy and I have been through a lot together.”

“The you should keep it.” Gura said, “Maybe it’ll save your life again.” She took a tentative step towards Amelia, looking up at the taller girl, “just… promise me you wont end up like her, okay? Don’t hate me.”

“I could never.” Amelia said, “I promise.”

The rest of their watch passed in a sort of comfortable silence, the pair only speaking on the sound of the waves or the pattern of the stars, and to welcome Kiara and Calli to their post as they were relieved. 

Morning came with far more tilting, and thunderous booms. “You might want to be up for this,” was all Ina told Amelia as she tried to decide if the day really needed her presence.

Arriving on deck, Amelia could see that it certainly did. The clouds that had been gathering the night before had formed themselves into a great bank of storm clouds, rolling towards them with murderous intent. 

“Guess the man was right about the storm.” Ina said, “I don’t think this boat is going to make it through that. We’ll be fish food before the night is out. Well you three will be. Gura and I will just be-”

“Ina!” Gura said suddenly, “The City of Lights, it’s underneath us, right?”

Ina paused a that, the need to be right cutting through her panic for a moment. “I believe so,” she said after a pause. “Though why that is important-”

“I’ll be back.” Gura said, hurrying to the side of the boat, one leg over the edge before anyone could question her.

“Gura!” All five said it, in one way or another, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Getting some help.” Gura said, “hopefully. Otherwise, make sure we don’t wind up here again, yeah?

And with a joyful shout, she drove herself over the edge, down into the depths below.


	20. The Serpent

Gura was a creature of the sea. The saltwater and brine felt more natural to her than air, and plunging into it once more should have felt like a homecoming. But she was not above the Alantrean Gap, this was not her home. 

The Narrow Sea was deceptively deep, and full of dangers. True sharks, great sea serpents, and even greater things lived there, hunting each other and what fools dared dive into the waters. Years ago there had been a city, on the great plain below, watching over the Chasms abound, home to more than a million Deep Folk. 

In their golden age, the Deep Folk had called it the City of Lights, a beacon of defiance and reverence for the great forces of the ocean. Abandoning it for the safer waters of Atlantis and the Eikoran continental shelf had felt like abandoning a part of their people, but it had been the right decision. The serpents had broken their truce with the Deep Folk, and not even the spirits who roamed the waters would come to their aide.

The spirits who Gura was hoping to summon.... Somehow. Kiara liked to imagine she was the spirit of all life, and Calli all death. But Gura knew better, knew their domain ended where the sea began. Under the water, there were different rules, different spirits. 

Gura’s trident led her dive, until the boat above her was nothing but a tiny silhouette, and the great ocean around her had her in its grips. She could see better than any human could ever hope too, below the waves. She saw the outlines of serpents, far below, saw sharks beginning to turn towards her, sensing fresh meat in the water. Schools of fish darted between them, hoping to be ignored by all, and lesser serpents, mere snakes compared to what lurked below, hunting the would be predators of the waters. 

Gura turned her attention to the sharks. This was her domain, and she would not let some mindless predators drive her from it. She didn’t wait for them, instead swishing her tail in great stokes, trident leading the way as the first shark closed. There would be three of them, Gura could feel the way each disturbed the water, could sense the way their hearts beat, could smell the wounds on one from a battle not long past. 

There was no finesse to the way they attacked. They were sharks, either they bit and tore their prey apart, or they were snapped in half by a serpent. There was no in between for them, no reason to be anything other than fast.

Gura, on the other hand, she was all twisting, fluid motion, allowing the current to dictate her attack, and the sharks wake the way she dodged. The first sharks rush very nearly caught Gura’s leg, though that was only so she could push off its rough hide and ride its wake to avoid the second, and drive her trident into the third, cracking through cartilage and organs before she pulled it from it’s victim, taking a few, powerful stokes of her tail to distance herself from her first victory.

The shark bled well, giving her a moment's respite while it’s companions tore into it, for what would be their last feast. Gura was not content with just escaping, she couldn’t be. She felt eyes on her, knew that she needed to be more than smart. The ocean was cruel, and she would be too.

The second shark didn’t get a chance to flee, nor strike back, as the trident pierced through its skull, ending its life in a heartbeat. The third was fast enough to recognize the threat, and smart enough to ignore the second meal inches from it. 

It’s final act was driving its toothy maw into Gura. There were no fancy tricks this time, no rolls or doges. Gura set herself in the water, allowing her trident to take the shark in the roof of its mouth, snarling as it’s outer teeth cut into her forearms as it shook and bled.

Gura pulled her trident from the shark, allowing herself to drift away from the bloodbath that she had created, examining the gashes in her arms. Another scar to collect, she figured.  


That was the last thing she thought, for a long moment, as her gaze went beyond her arm, to what could have been mistaken as a moving mountain range below her. Far, far below her, near the bottom, just out of sight. She braced herself as best she could, but the current it created flung her upwards, spinning end over end, her tail flailing as all her senses told her something massive had just found her, that she was dead to rights, that she needed to swim and never look back.

When she finally managed to steady herself, Gura was facing a great ring of coils, flowing around her twisting and turning until she could not discern an end or a beginning. Turning slowly, she came face to face with it. The thing she’d come to meet, the thing all her sea-borne instincts told her to run from or grovel to. Orochi, the Great Spirit of Life. The Bringer of Death. He who Feasts. 

His head was larger than their whole ship, and each of his six eyes was taller than Gura, and wider than her as well. His great whiskers flicked in the water, no doubt sensing her fear. Gura’s own senses were overwhelmed by the great heart pumping blood through the serpent, and the currents the serpent created. Her only solace was that she was far, far too small for him to care for eating. 

The effort to swallow her would be more than he would get from ten of her. 

“Child of the shallows,” he spoke, in the way those who lived under the seas spoke.

“Orochi,” Gura said, slowly, carefully. “I have come to ask you to honor your pact with my people once more.”

All six of the serpent’s eyes narrowed, and his mouth opened to release what would be a booming laugh, one that would make Gura’s bones quiver. “You think,” Orochi spoke, “that I still honor the Covenant? How long has it been since your people swam my waters? How long since you became prey instead of predator?”

“You feasted in our halls,” Gura said, “We gilded your scales, and in return, you promised. Each of us were owed a favor.”

“I made that promise to the Sea Peoples.” The serpent said, “folk who tamed serpents, who called the sea their home. Who were unafraid of the depths, of the beasts that lurked within. You are not the same.”

His great head turned from her, to return to whatever deep sea prey could sustain a beast such as he, but stopped, watched as Gura lowered her trident. “I am a child of the Deep.” She snarled, “I do not fear the water. Honor your pact, or you will be remembered as Orochi the Traitor.”

“You dare?” The great serpent bellowed, opening its maw to show his great fangs.

“I dare.” Gura answered. “Honor. Your. Pact.”

“Prove to me you are of the deep.” Orochi snarled something out in a darker, deeper language. He was followed by many serpents, scavengers, beneath Gura’s notice. But they were still serpents, long and dangerous, great gills running up to their eyes, with enough power to snap boasts in half.. One of them slid up, into the ring of coils that surrounded Gura. “Best your foe. Prove to me the pact still stands.”

 _I hope you find a way to fix this, Ame._ Gura thought. The serpent lunged at her. It wasn’t like the sharks she had fought, it was all curving, spinning coils, all the skill and intelligence of an ancient predator. There would be no outsmarting it, not like she had done the sharks. 

As it closed, opening its mouth to show off the fangs that would tear her apart, Gura’s eyes hardened. This was a scavenger, so low as it didn’t even hunt in the ocean. Gura wasn’t going to be prey to something such as that. She was more. She was a Child of the Deep. If Orochi wanted a show, then by the gods, she would tear the serpent apart with her trident and her teeth.

She didn’t think after that. It wasn’t strategy that guided her, but instincts older than she could imagine. The serpent dived at her, expecting a single bit to finish the fight. It should have, but at the very last moment, Gura rolled aside, instead grinding against it’s rough scales, rubbing her arm raw and red, snarling as her skin broke and tainted the water with blood. The serpent, surprised, wheeled around, turning elegantly in the water and going for another dive. This time, though, Gura was not content with just dodging death.

Gura’s tail was just strong enough to propel her aside, and Gura used that moment to drive her trident into its gills. It was not a killing blow, but Gura was now being dragged along with the serpent as it thrashed and flailed, trying to dislodge the Atlantean.

Gura didn’t bother trying to find a hand hold on the scales, instead grabbing the fleshier inner parts of the gills as she extracted her trident, using them to pull herself to eye level with the serpent.  


It’s pupils were wide, and shot through with fear as Gura brought her trident for the killing blow. But, instead of striking, she hissed out, “yield to me.” Lowering her weapon so that it scraped against the serpent's eye with each twist.

The serpent slowed, and stopped, silent, but Gura knew what it meant. “Run. Flee. Find some carcass to scavenge. Never return to the surface.” She snarled at it, allowing it to flee, her tail keeping her steady against the great rush of water as it fled.

There was a great booming laugh, and Gura turned to see Orochi, all eyes fixed on her. For the first time, she was unafraid of the serpent. The Children of the Deep did not fear their spirits.

“Maybe the pact still holds.” Orochi said, “for you, at very least, it does. I will honor your request. What favor do you have to ask of me?”

Gura’s snarl slowly turned to a smirk, as she glanced upwards, to her ship, and the churning waters of the storm. “There’s a storm coming,” she said, “And I need help going through it.”

“Not around?”

“Straight through it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gura's a creature of the sea, I know, mind blowing revelations here. Aside from this, I also changed the description, just cause... IDK i was particularly fond of the old one
> 
> But uh, 20th part. I guess now is as good a time as any to thank y'all for reading and commenting and all that jazz. It does keep the motivation flowing, I can tell you, so thank you.
> 
> Cheers


	21. The Storm

Gura very nearly slid off Orochi’s head as he broke the surface, scrabbling to hold on to rough scales and smooth whiskers, just barely clinging to the serpent as he closed on their boat. Even from her position atop the serpent, she could see the fear in Ina’s eyes, and the resignation in Calli and Kiara’s. 

Kiara yelled something out, turning towards Amelia, probably telling her to go back, but the traveler had already spotted Gura, and waved the phoenix's words away. Orochi closed on the boat, lowering his head and allowing Gura to slide off with a roll and stumble. He did not speak- he couldn’t above the waves, and dived down beneath them, shadowing the boat.

“Help has arrived.” Gura said, with a smile and bow. Amelia burst out laughing, doubling over in a mix or relief and shock. Kiara followed suit, leaning on the seemingly unimpressed Calli, while Ina, ignoring all of them, all but ran to the edge of the ship, watching the waves below.

“Where in all the hells did you get that… what is that?” Amelia asked.

“Orochi, the Great Lord of the Seas,” Ina answered for Gura, “I didn’t know he stalked these waters. I would love to speak with him, if we have the time.”

“Way to make an entrance,” Kiara, now recovered, said, “you’ve been taking notes from Amelia, I see. Is Orochi… a friend?”

“Not quite.” Gura said, “but he will get us through the storm.”

“Through?” Kiara asked, “we can go around- especially with a serpent like that. Have it pull us to the far edge and then dash across-”

“We’re going through.” Gura said, “no point in wasting time.”

“And she wants to show off.” Amelia said with a smile.

“And that.”

The storm was upon them within the hour, bringing great waves and battering winds. Gura stood at the prow of the ship, trident out, laughing as waves shattered in time to the roars that rolled up from the ocean, spraying her with a fine mist. 

Amelia stood just behind her, clinging to the ship’s rails, but unwilling to miss whatever was in store for them. Her new jacket did nothing to protect her from the torrent, and her hat had been left somewhere in the ship's cabin, for fear of the winds snatching it away.

As they neared the center of the storm, the waves only got taller, and they all could hear the creaking and cracking as Orochi coiled around the bottom of the ship, keeping it stable even as they climbed great waves and plowed through the shattered remnants of them.

Calli was somewhere inside, doing her best to not be sick- whatever that meant for a reaper, and Kiara was with her, either for the same reason, or to comfort her pair. Ina was at the ship's wheel, doing all of nothing, but unafraid of the storm, a fellow Deep Folk at home in the storm and water. 

“Having fun?” Gura had to shout to be heard over the storm as she turned to Amelia, who still clutched at the rails.

“No,” Amelia said with the kind of laugh people gave when they were too terrified to do anything else.

“Don’t you worry, Ame,” Gura said, taking a step back so she could put one arm around her, leaning into Amelia, “as long as I’m up here, the storm can’t touch you.”

It wasn’t exactly true, but it seemed to steady Amelia, who flushed and loosened her death grip on the rails, if only a little. She smiled as Gura roared along with Orochi, and even joined in a moment later, adding her own, defiant shout to the howling chaos of the storm. 

The storm lessened as they progressed, and Gura slowly pried Amelia away from her lifeline, until the only support she had was Gura, and they yelled into the waves, pretending it was they who broke them with the power of their voices alone. They laughed as the first rays of light broke through the clouds, and cheered as the waves no longer required Orochi’s roars to break on the ship, and the rains lessened and wavered.

“She lives!” Ina told them when Calli and Kiara arrived, drawn onto deck by the lack of great rocking waves. When she spoke again, she was already laughing at her own joke, still untold “Jeeze, Calli, you look like death.” 

Kiara laughed at that, if only a little, and Watson rolled her eyes, but the five were on deck, and they could already see the continent laid out before them. Albion was a land or rolling hills and narrow plains. Once controlled by a great trade league, it was now the playground of city states looking for the edge that would see them exert their hegemony across the continent. 

Karl-el-Kesh was one of those cities, once a backwater, but war profiteering and picking the right side in a handful of wars had seen them enriched and with strong allies. Only their involvement in the Grand Campaign, and continued threats from the Three Crowns on the Lowlands had kept them from carving out an empire in Albion.

Orochi chose that moment to emerge from the water, having guided their ship through, as was promised. He could not speak, but he lowered his head and turned it, placing three of his great eyes level with Gura and Amelia. They did not move, and the only acknowledgement the two got was the narrowing of his pupils as he focused on them, before the great serpent dived beneath the waves once more.

“I presume that was a one time thing?” Amelia asked.

“Of course,” Gura said, “can’t have life be too easy, remember?”

“Of course.”

“Gura,” Kiara joined them as Orochi faded into the deep, watching the last of his scaled tail dip out of sight, “that was terrifying. Thank you.”

“Yeah, well, that was the easy part. Show is yours from here on.” Gura said, “where are we headed? Straight into Karl-el-Kesh?”

“Not quite.” Kiara answered, “there’s a port town, just outside of the city. Little Rein. We can slip into the city from there, hopefully with no one knowing.”

The seas were rough still, as they sailed towards the coast, tilting to follow the shallows up towards their destination. Their route had been intended to take them as close to Albion as quickly as possible, in case they needed to grind ashore, or escape a storm, with or without their boat, and they still had more than a day of sailing ahead of them. 

Amelia did her best to not fuss over Gura’s wounds once more, though Gura did not protest when the traveler wrapped her wounds in cloth and linen. 

“I- I need to change,” Amelia said, once Gura’s arms were tended to. She was still soaked, and quite clearly miserable because of it. “Don’t want to wind up a raisin before we get into port.”

“Yeah, wouldn’t want to lose someone as cute as you to the water.” Gura spoke before she really thought, and stuttered out, “I- uh, I mean, would be a real shame. If that happened. You know.”

Gura had expected some teasing. Instead, Amelia turned away and said, “yeah. That’s… yeah, I’ll go. Change.” She was gone in a heartbeat, retreating into the ship, with more than a few glances  
back.

“So- that was an experience.” Ina stood with her now, watching the seas churn below them. Calli had had enough of the rocking once more, and had fled into the ship. Amelia was somewhere changing out of her soaking clothes, and Kiara manned the wheel. They were alone, for the most part, and Ina kept her voice low.

“Yeah,” Gura said, “I don’t think I’ll be doing anything like that soon. Or ever.”

There was a moment of silence, before Ina spoke again. “Did you see the city?” She asked.

“No, didn’t go far enough down.” Gura said, “And the lights weren’t on, so there was nothing to see from above anyway. Why?”

“It is- was, I guess- my home. The last city I lived in before I was called to the surface.” Ina answered. “I would have liked to imagine it was still inhabited by some folk.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Gura said, “but it’s not the safest of places to live anymore. Too many serpents and sharks looking for meals.”

“It’s a shame,” Ina said, “I miss it some days. The Ancient one also liked the city, and that’s a rarity in itself.”

“Yeah, well, maybe we’ll go back one day.” Gura said, “crazier things have happened.”

“Maybe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't happy with how this bit ended, so I rewrote the last thirdish, changed up a few things, just made it better, at least to me. Sorry for the delay n stuff, I wasn't rested well enough to finish this until right about now.
> 
> Cheers


	22. The Wailing Maid

Little Rein was a happy town. The wars that went on in Albion tended to be fought on the seas, or with trade, and their little town had never been important enough to be sacked, and just close enough to Karl-el-Kesh to be more or less ignored in the grand scheme of things. 

Gura had never gone across the channel- she wasn’t a diplomat, and had never intended for her travels to take her away from the Lowland. As such, she was wholly unprepared for the ordered chaos that was a truly human city. The roads had been laid out in the early days, when Little Rein had been nothing more than a convenient port, and the buildings had grown like weeds around them. There was no rhyme or reason to them, none of the ordered stone buildings of the Lowland cities. 

This was a human place, which meant that, once again, Gura was getting looks. Looks at her tail, at the bandages on her arms. She did her best to ignore them, of course, but she’d more than earned her pride. She wouldn’t turn away from them, nor bow her head. 

“Let’s get a drink,” Amelia told her, “I still owe you one- and Kiara wants to spend another night in town.”

“She does?” Gura had expected the exact opposite.

“Nah, but Calli’s making her plan out our approach.” Amelia said, “doesn’t want us running in like a chicken with our heads cut off. Hopefully no one noticed us.”

“They noticed me.” Gura said, turning to meet the eyes of a passerby. She turned her head away after a long moment. Satisfied, Gura turned her attention back to Amelia, “if there’s a bounty out for all of us…”

“Then we’ll have some fun before we get to Karl-el-Kesh.” Amelia finished for her. “Or, at least get warmed up before we storm the citadel. That is what we’re going to wind up doing, you know.”

“That is how things tend to go around us.” Gura said, “‘The Wailing Maid?’ That’s a tavern, right?”

“Indeed it is. Bit on the pricey side, but the food's worth it.” Amelia said. “Come on, I’ll show you around.”

When Amelia and Gura had begun to take a liking to each other, it had been over food and drink. The traveler claimed to be an expert on what taverns were reputable, which ones had good beds, which would charge you extra if you wanted to have something hidden- there was much Gura didn’t know, and Amelia wanted to teach. Gura assumed Amelia had bluffed her way through half of it, as she was wont to do in those early days. She was mostly correct, but there were a few kernels of wisdom throw in there, amongst all the chaff.

Amelia liked to teach her things, act like she knew more of the surface world than Gura did. Which, in a way, she did. She knew the naming convention of taverns, (“The something something,” she’d said, leading Gura into the Red Sail) knew how merchants were more likely to sell if you looked them in the eyes and how to wield Kiara’s influence to their own benefit (“though, maybe don’t use that too much. Wouldn’t want her getting angry.”) The lessons were small things, inconsequential, unless you were a wanderer far from home. And half the time, they found they were wrong in the handful of bar brawls they’d been involved in, or with a very angry shop keep or brewer cursing them and taking far more money than he was owed. 

But it had been part of the fun. The risk, the reward. Being able to relax and laugh in the midst of the history being written around her had been a godsend. Kiara and Calli tended to drink by themselves, fine wines that didn’t lend themselves to celebrations and the sort of wildness Gura enjoyed. Responsibly, of course. She would never get wasted the night before a battle, or wander off with Amelia just before a war council they were supposed to attend or-

Kiara, needless to say, had not been happy with the pair of them more than a few times, but their mistakes were more than made up for in their deeds on and off the battlefield, so she usually let them off with nothing more than an eyeroll and a sharp comment about the responsibilities of a Brigadier General and a Lieutenant of the Republic. Usually was the key word there. Angry Kiara was something that shot dread through both Gura and Amelia, and it was only something that had been directed at them once. 

“Champagne for us, if you wouldn’t mind,” Gura had allowed Amelia to lead them to a table, and already the other was starting the night off strong. “And maybe some of your sweetbread.”

“Champagne?” Gura asked, “how sweet, what are we celebrating?”

“Making it out of the storm? You looking like a hero riding out on that serpent?” Amelia shrugged, “take your pick.”

There was a pause, with their waiter gone and Amelia watching the patrons carefully, examining each in turn. Gura took that moment to watch the tavern itself. It was a fancy thing, its tables made from fine cherry, and a rack of very expensive liquor stood behind a great glass pane, one that slid so their drinks could be poured. It was not the sort of place one got into fights, no, this was a place above such petty things. Gura imagined the patrons liked to settle their disputes over little games of chess.

She giggled at the thought, drawing Amelia’s eyes back to her. “Nothing, nothing.” Gura said quickly, “just… imagining the kind of folk that come here. And how they’re…”

“Not quite us?” Amelia suggested, and smiled when Gura laughed. She didn’t speak again, but seemed content to settle her eyes on Gura, who flushed under the attention. She noticed, of course, she noticed just about everything, when she wanted too. 

“I was a detective, back home.” She finally said. “Well, close enough. I wanted to be a detective, worked as a private eye for a while. That’s where the jacket came from. And the hat. Was supposed to make me a bit more recognizable, add a bit more to the persona.”

Amelia didn't talk about her work, not unless she was many drinks in, and in one of her moods. “What happened?” Gura asked, “you talk like you aren’t one, anymore.”

“I’m not.” It was said with a dismissive shrug, “I found a watch that let me time travel, and said, ‘screw this, I’m going to be rich.’”

“Did you- did you ever go back?”

“A few times.” Amelia tilted her head as she spoke, “went ahead too, just to see how the future went. That’s when I started figuring out time was less of a straight line and more like- like a tree. Bunch of different options, but you can only follow one, you know? All the others are just ideas of what could happen.”

“What are they like?” Gura asked, “are they good? Bad?”

“Depends.” Amelia said, “on how things happen. They've been getting better. But there’s still a lot of stuff that needs fixing- things beyond this time. I always thought this whole thing would be temporary, I’d show up, make sure Kiara stayed alive, and move on. I never- I was going to leave, after the Grand Campaign. Get moving to the next point I thought I could change the future. Was all ready too and everything.”

“What happened?”

“I- well-” Amelia stuttered over her next words, for only a moment, but it was enough for them to get interrupted. Their waiter had returned, with two tall glasses and a bottle of fine champagne, worth far more than anything Gura had ever drank. The pair smiled and allowed their first glasses to be poured, sharing a glance over them and willing their waiter away. 

They succeeded in a way, though it seemed they summoned someone else. “Get me a whiskey, no ice. And I swear- if that glass isn’t half full, I’ll be drinking from the bottle.” She was a giant, compared to the folk around her, and carried herself with the sort of swagger Gura had come to associate with either overconfidence or overwhelming skill. She sat at their table, shooing the waiter away with one hand, and tuning her eyes to the pair.

“How are you here?’ Amelia’s words barely squeaked out, “what- how is this possible? Who are you?”

“Kiryu Coco, envoy of the High Queen, Guardian of the Fell Armory- a lot of things.” She said with the sort of carelessness Gura would expect form someone listing off their grocery list. And, for the first time, Gura noticed her eyes. They weren’t a normal color, like brown or green, but a purple that bled into orange, and seemingly lit with their own fire. “And I’m going to need you two to keep your mouths shut while I explain some things. We’ve got,” she paused, checking the watch at her wrist, “fifteen minutes until someone tries to kill Ina.”

“How do you know that?” Was Gura’s first question, already half out of her chair.

"Sit." Her words were very clearly a command, one Gura ignored until Amelia spoke.

“Uh, Gura?” Amelia said, “this- she sold me my revolver. About fifteen hundred years from now. We might- might want to listen to what she has to say.”

“And I am still expecting a repayment,” She said, “but right now, you two need to listen, then act. It’ll be the difference between surviving the next few days and winning the battle you’re headed into, clear?”

Gura glanced to Amelia, who gave a sort of resigned nod. “clear,” Gura said, settling back into her seat, “what- what do you have to tell us?”

And oh, did she have a story to tell.


End file.
